Thank You
by drake220
Summary: An Inuyahsa Fanguild Best Drama Nominee! An angsty, lemon filled story about a deteriorating relationship that should never have changed because some things just can't be fixed. IK. RR!
1. Default Chapter

Hey Everyone! Hope you like this! I just like the idea of Kagome doing this in public so…there you go! Read and Review and as always, constructive criticism is welcome!!

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** Thank You**

Kagome ran into her morning class, slightly out of breath. Some people turned to stare but most ignored it. Ayumi, the only one from her junior high class to come with Kagome to high school, waved a cheerful hello.

"Wow, Kag-chan, you look very…happy this morning," Ayumi commented with a mischievous grin as Kagome slid into her seat.

Kagome's hair was a bit mussed, her skin was flushed lightly and there was an indefinable aura of relaxation surrounding Kagome this morning.

The blue eyed girl tossed her friend a saucy grin and just shrugged her shoulders.

At the sight of her Cheshire Cat smile, Ayumi's mouth formed a delighted 'o' and she immediately began urging Kagome to start talking.

"Come on," Ayumi coaxed. "You know you want to tell me exactly what put that look on your face! Spill it…you want to…" she wheedled.

"Well…" Kagome said with a widening of that same grin, "how much can you handle?"

"Ooooh!" Ayumi squealed in delight. "Tell tell!!"

"It all started-"

The door to the classroom slid open with a bang, startling everyone in class 3-1. In the doorway stood a roguish looking boy of about twenty with long silver hair and bright golden eyes. He wore a short sleeved tight red t-shirt that was tucked into dark denim pants encasing long muscular legs and appraised the class with an apparent devil-may-care attitude.

The man sauntered into the class, slinging a beaten up leather jacket over one shoulder and something clenched in one hand. As he strolled through the rows of seats, one girl gasped and he shot her a sexy grin and winked when she blushed.

All eyes in the class were trained on the obviously arrogant stranger as he casually walked over to Kagome's desk.

"Yasha?" she asked, noticeably confused. "What on earth are you doing here? I just saw you five minutes ago…" Kagome tilted her head back to be able to look Inuyasha in the eyes.

Leaning down in one graceful movement, he whispered, "You forgot something when you left me this morning."

Slowly unfisting his hand, Inuyasha dangled a tiny pair of lacy lavender underwear in the air by one clawed finger.

"Your panties, bitch."

Kagome gave an innocent smile and calmly glided out of her seat. Looking Inuyasha right in the eyes, she took the underwear from his hand. Stepping into them, she ever so slowly slid the bit of lace up her long legs. Ignoring the gasps from her classmates and focusing on the growing lust in Inuyasha's eyes, Kagome gave a little wiggle and flipped her skirt up to show bare buttocks. Inuyasha's eyes narrowed and he took over roughly, yanking the lace tight up against the junction between Kagome's thighs. Kagome let out a little breathless moan as Inuyasha took his time adjusting the panties into place, making sure his hands brushed up against her center.

Inuyasha slowly let his hands fall away and smirked at the slightly glazed look in Kagome's eyes.

Her eyes refocused and she took a step toward Inuyasha and tugged gently on a lock of silver. "You're too good to me," she whispered sweetly, her hand resting on his hip. "You know, it's hard for a girl to walk around all day in a short skirt and no underwear. The slightest breeze and the whole world can see …certain things…" she continued breathily. She pushed her hips into his, feeling how much he liked helping her dress. "I guess I should say thank you…"

The class watched in absolute amazement as Kagome took Inuyasha's face in her hands and kissed him, languidly and thoroughly. Inuyasha gave a little groan of happiness and shifted, dragging Kagome closer by her hips. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss, forcing her to accept the intrusion of his tongue. Inuyasha reached out to touch her bottom and was about to slip his hands into her-

"What is going on here?!?!" came the horrified shout from the newly entered teacher. "Higurashi, what the _hell_ are you doing???"

Kagome parted from Inuyasha unhurriedly and licked her pouting lips. Inuyasha's eyes focused on her sweet pink tongue and he growled, tightening his hands on her, dragging her closer.

Looking over her shoulder at the teacher, Kagome gave an innocent smile. "Why, nothing Tachikawa -sensei."

With a few whispered words that led those who heard her to gasp, Kagome convinced Inuyasha to leave the room. The sweet seeming girl smiled at her class and sat down demurely in her seat. Everyone else slowly sat down as well and Mr. Tachikawa- a bit disoriented - began to read the roll.

"So what were we discussing, Ayami-chan?" Kagome whispered to her friend a few minutes later. "Oh yeah! What I did this morning…"

Ayumi snickered. "Never mind. I'm pretty sure I figured it out," she drawled.

The two girls shared a smile.

"But, Kagome-chan," Ayumi asked sweetly, "Why didn't you invite me? Three is always better then two."

It was good to know Kagome could still blush.

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Well, there you go! For those of you who read my Queer Eye fic, this idea took literally barely an hour to do and that last chapter of TJKGB is so important, that I want to make it perfect! Don't kill me!!! (You'll never find out the dirty thing Inuyasha tells Kagome!!)

So, Read and Review and tell me how it was!! I love reviews! In fact, I'm a review floozy!!! Thanks for reading!!


	2. A Good Reason To Be Late

A/N: Hey everyone. I know you're all like, what the heck is with this girl and her multiple stories! But no! I've been continuing Thank You for a while on and decided to try and sneak this little lemon fest past the managers. Don't tell on me! I warn you now:

GRAPHIC, SMUTTY, UNSQUEEZED LEMONS CONTAINED WITHIN!

The entire chapter is basically a lemon. The whole dang thing so if that's not your scene...Now no one can say I didn't warn them. I honestly don't see any lemon restrictions listed so if this is too risqué, someone let me down and I'll breeze past the actual…um…yeah.

Enjoy and review please! As always, constructive criticism is appreciated.

Oh and this chapter takes place BEFORE CHAPTER ONE! As in, before Kagome gets to school.

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**Chapter Two:** **A Good Reason to be Late**

Earlier that morning:

Kagome clambered out of the well, almost tripping in her haste. Inuyasha was sleeping right now, exhausted from last night. The battle had been fierce and long, draining even the inexhaustible hanyou of his strength.

_Stupid demons_, Kagome thought viciously as she tugged the enormous yellow backpack out of the well. _'I want the Shikon Jewel! Give it to me'_ she mocked the now dead ape demon in her mind. "I hate them all…" she growled. "Damn thing almost ate my physics book…" Kagome trudged up the well stairs, going slowly as any unguarded motion might convince her backpack to throw her backward down the stairs.

"I'm going to be late," she huffed. "Late again! The Kami's hate me…why did that idiot have to keep on waking up?" Sneaking away from Inuyasha's watchful gaze was hard at any time but after a battle, it was near impossible for him to calm down enough to sleep. _Makes me wish adrenaline was never invented!_ Sighing as she reached the door to the outdoors, Kagome pulled on the doors only to have a clawed hand slam it shut.

Kagome didn't even blink. "Inuyasha…" she said firmly. "I'm late. Move."

Suddenly there was hot breath on the back of her neck and Inuyasha hissed in a rough tone, "Bitch, you aren't going anywhere…" Kagome closed her eyes in irritation as she felt a now familiar slow burn begin in her abdomen.

"It's odd, smelling you be irritated as hell and turned on as hell at the same time," Inuyasha remarked softly, tracing a claw on the sensitive skin of her throat. Kagome's breath hitched as that slight pressure brought to mind other places those claws could ruthlessly arouse…

"Keh," Inuyasha chuckled behind her, all sexy gruffness suddenly gone from his voice. "You get turned on quick… does that make you a slut?"

Kagome's eyes snapped open. "Osuw-"

"I wouldn't do that," Inuyasha interrupted, quickly placing a hand over Kagome's mouth. "We're about six feet off the ground."

Kagome looked down and her scowl intensified. It was true, the platform on which they stood was indeed about six feet off the dirt floor. She could already see what would happen: Inuyasha would crash into the floor which would splinter under the force of the spell and she would plummet to the ground with the asshole she knew as Inuyasha.

Inuyasha smirked as Kagome's face darkened. "Knew you were a smart girl. I'd be fine but you'd probably break a couple of bones."

"I have to go," Kagome told him wearily. "I mean it, I really do…"

"You tried to run off again," Inuyasha commented, as if Kagome hadn't said anything, as if he hadn't boxed her in between his arms.

"Yasha-chan," Kagome wheedled sweetly. "Move your hands now or next time you're turned on, I'll sit you so hard that your dick will snap off from the impact."

Inuyasha slowly smiled a smile Kagome had learned to love and fear and loved to fear and feared to love. Leaning in, he trapped her between muscular arms, a hard chest and the cold wood of the doors.

"You think you can?" Kagome barely breathed as Inuyasha's mouth descended onto her collarbone. Giving it light bites and soothing it with tiny laps of his tongue, Kagome could feel that familiar burn coming back with a vengeance.

"I don't think you can…you'd miss what it can do far too much..." Inuyasha whispered with a smirk more felt then seen. He watched her eyes get cloudy with lust and dragged her head toward him for a deep and penetrating kiss that melted Kagome's resolve.

She gasped softly as his mouth left hers and traveled upward toward her ear. Nibbling and sucking on its lobe gently, Inuyasha's hand crept up Kagome's leg.

Kagome bit her lip to keep from making any noise. Noises turned Inuyasha on, turned him wild and hard and demanding. _He'd be like that inside me_, Kagome thought dazedly and the mental image she provided herself with made the breath catch in Kagome's throat.

"You saying something Kagome?" Inuyasha asked softly, trailing a claw along Kagome's leg. First over her calf and knee socks then drawing small circles on the back of her knees, making Kagome bit her lip even harder as he knew it would.

Inuyasha smiled and grabbed her lower lip with his teeth, forcing her to let go. Slipping his tongue inside, he was still gentle as his claws dragged over to the outside of her upper thighs. Kagome stifled a whimper as one hand journeyed to the inside of the thigh.

"You are saying something," Inuyasha said with a smile. "You're saying how much you don't want to go to school."

"No!" Kagome made the effort to shake off his spell, shoved Inuyasha with his mind numbing claws and distracting body away from her. "I have to go!"

Inuyasha held up a slender wrist. "Too fucking bad," he said calmly. He drew the inside of her wrist into his mouth and slowly began sucking on the frantically pulsating vein there. His fangs brushed over it and Kagome could swear that she felt her labia contract. Her breathing sporadic, Kagome tried to contain it but when Inuyasha teased her wrist and simultaneously tweaked one of a needy peak with knowing fingers, she whimpered his name.

"Inu….." she whimpered again and helplessly twisted herself against him and his heat.

Inuyasha's eyes turned into a deep amber as Kagome began to pant and he felt himself begin to harden inside his pants. His breathing thinned out and he licked his lips.

"Do it again," he demanded in a low husky voice. "Do that again." Holding her arm captive above her head, Inuyasha moved his fingers over Kagome's waist and duck into her skirt, pulling her shirt free with a rough jerk. Moving closer, he pressed against Kagome, pushed his growing cock into her stomach. "Do it again, damn it…"

He leaned down and began to bite around her nipples, bites that would ensure she knew he was there and that he wanted something. _In the way_, he thought as he ripped her shirt over her pretty head, letting go of her for only a moment before starting his pleasurable torture on her breasts. He took one tip into his mouth and sucked on it leisurely, making the bud stand erect and red from his attention.

"Inu….yasha!" Kagome gasped desperately. She moaned and her head went back with a thud against the wall as the half demon gave attention to the neglected breast. Kagome panted as one fang grazed her now upright bid. "Oh, god, no…I have…a…go now…"

Inuyasha merely looked up at her, stopping his ministrations until she looked down at him. He abruptly flicked at the sensitive peak still in his mouth, causing Kagome to let out a sob of want.

"You don't want to go," he said cruelly. "Your body wants me…"

"Asshole…I have to go, damn it," murmured Kagome mindlessly as Inuyasha ignored her, allowing himself the pleasure of fondling her ass as his mouth dragged at the previously neglected breast. Kagome's hands went into Inuyasha hair, tugging him closer as she arched up into his eager mouth. "…have to go…" she mumbled as she pushed her hips into his, grinding against him, selfishly trying to put out an internal fire and knowing what would satiate her was there, hidden behind layers of clothes. "Should…but I…oh god, I want you!" Kagome mumbled as her hands cupped Inuyasha's ass to press against him harder. "…want you so bad…" she whispered into a triangular ear and she licked up the edge of it.

Kagome slammed against the wooden well house door as Inuyasha began to lose his control. "Say it again!" he groaned. "Say it…_god!…" _he moaned as Kagome leaned up and sucked his ear into her mouth, her hot tongue dipping in and creating hell with Inuyasha's libido.

"You like that, I know you do," Kagome whispered and groaned as Inuyasha's claws dug into her hips. The combination of the vibrations her small noise had sent through his body and the spike in the scent of her arousal made Inuyasha attempt to move closer and dragged her into another kiss, forcing her mouth to open and her legs to part.

She writhed against him but couldn't move, only moan, pant and instinctively push herself against him. Inuyasha drew his head from her with a snarl and pushed her skirt up around her waist. Underneath it was a surprise.

"What are-_ah!"_ Inuyasha arched for a second as Kagome's nails scratched him teasingly. "What are these?" he asked, his voice deeper then usual when his nerves calmed somewhat. Kagome's hands were still distracting him, playing with his chest and nipping at his neck with her sweet mouth, touching him and causing fire to be lit just below his skin.

Kagome lifted her eyes to his and smiled somewhat smugly. "Panties. Lace panties…"

Inuyasha felt his dick harden to an almost painful pitch. "Not the usual cotton things. When you were planning on showing me these?" he asked huskily, fingers already moving to rip off the sexy barrier to her center.

Kagome couldn't help it. "When you were a really good boy…"

Inuyasha glared. "Want me to be a good boy, bitch?" He abruptly forced his hips into between her legs, bucking into her so that his erection scraped the length of her slit.

"INU!" Kagome gasped, the suddenness only adding to the pleasure. Though he still had on his hakama and she her underwear, the feeling of him was not at all diminished and Kagome felt her insides clench tightly.

Inuyasha cupped her behind, spreading her legs wide open and began to mock thrust into her, grinding into her with enough force that Kagome knew he'd be buried deep if not for the clothes. Kagome writhed in his arms, making anxious pleas for fulfillment but he only used the whispers to spur himself on.

"You don't want a good boy, you bitch, you want me," Inuyasha hissed, still not allowing their most sensitive areas to be freed. Inuyasha ground into her harder. Kagome trembled, gasped and begged, each sound spurring Inuyasha on. "You want me, Kagome," Inuyasha hissed into her ears, the hot breath making her close her eyes and twist in his arms. "You want me and I'm at my best when I'm bad…"

Suddenly, all his warmth was gone and Kagome was dumped onto the wooden floor. Stunned, she looked to see Inuyasha standing by the well.

"Wha-? What are you doing?" she asked, hating the desperation in her voice but unable to stop it.

"You get your ass down here and I'll make all the aching go away Kagome.." Inuyasha whispered, his voice causing goose bumps to rise on her skin and a shudder of pure sexual awareness course through her body. "You come to me or I'm going..."

"You would leave? Go back? Now?" Kagome said, aghast at the idea of him leaving her this way.

Inuyasha smirked. "Well well, who wants who to stay now?"

"Oh…." Kagome said softly, dangerously. "You're making fun of me…mocking me when we could be doing…other things…" She smiled at her hanyou, still managing to look innocent though she had on only underwear, her breast and long legs uncovered.

_God, I love when she looks like that. She's so goddamn fuckable when her cunt's dripping like that_, Inuyasha thought, his mouth drying up her scent of full blown arousal tickled his nose and clouded his brain. His member jumped as memories of how Kagome felt under him bombarded his mind and he breathed heavier. Kagome had no idea of just how severely she affected him and Inuyasha thanked any of the kamis that were listening for that small blessing. _She would be insufferable_, he thought uncharitably.

Kagome slowly stood up, hips tilted. "Guess what, Inu?" she said with a fake perkiness, jumping up and down once or twice so that her breasts would bob. Inuyasha licked his lips, gripping the well tightly for control. "I don't want any games," she continued. "I'm horny and I want to get fucked. Right now," she said hoarsely. "Right here."

Inuyasha felt precum seeping from the tip of his dick and cursed. "Don't use that language," he growled. He caught the acrid smell of her fury and it almost made his knees buckle.  
"Poor Inu, it must be disturbing for you to hear that out of my mouth. I'm the gentle little girl, right?" she asked rhetorically as Inuyasha's fists clenched. Kagome bit by bit peeled off her lavender panties, throwing them to the side of the well house. "I'm not all that little Inuyasha and I'll curse if I so god damn feel the need. However, right now, I feel a different need and since you don't seem in the mood to oblige me…"

Inuyasha' eyes widened as Kagome began to saunter down the stairs, walking as if she had on a ball gown instead of nothing more then her own skin. She settled down on a random step and slowly spread her legs wide, enjoying the glazed eyes and harsh breathing of her lover.

"…I'll just have to help myself." Kagome shrugged. "Self-sufficiency is important nowadays..."

Inuyasha watched breathlessly as Kagome spread her plump lower lips with two delicate digits. Other fingers went to go explore that damp apex of her thighs, tickling and making Kagome purr with pleasure. Inuyasha watched intently as Kagome's hand moved into her slit and her tight ass wriggled on the step sensuously.

"Stop that," Inuyasha commanded hoarsely. He could feel the string on his control being tightened. With every moan she made, every squirm she pressed against the wood, his control was coming that much farther to breaking.

"Inu…." Kagome moaned as her finger began to play with her clit. Torturing herself, she teased her nub by flitting around it, giving it the lightest of touches.

"Shit, stop it Kagome!" Inuyasha shouted, all the muscles in his body tensed to the point of pain at the erotic sight of Kagome pleasuring herself.

Kagome merely let out a breathy whimper that echoed in the well house and Inuyasha crouched on the floor, his hand rubbing himself through his pants, trying to relieve the pain of engorged arousal. He ordered her again to stop but she ignored him as he had her and continued, letting the game continue.

"You know, you taught me this," she whispered to Inuyasha breathlessly. She looked at him and continued to tease both himself and her. "You made me aware of myself….I get wettest when you tease me, when you do just enough to make me scream but don't let me cum…" Her breath was more labored as her body overrode her mind and forced her finger to begin to fuck her clit. "Oh god," She whimpered, drawing her legs further for better access. She looked at the man across from her. "You make me so wet Inuyasha…so wet sometimes that I'm literally sitting in a puddle of my own juices…and all I want to do is cum on your dick, get ridden by you, have you fuck me until I break…."

Inuyasha whimpered and felt sweat flowing down, his cock tenting his pants and staining the front. Gasping, panting, he still wouldn't move toward her. He wouldn't lose. The bitch was coming to him…she had to…any minute now…

Kagome spasmed onto herself as she tugged the sensitive area. "Oh shit, oh god, oh, oh…" Kagome whispered to herself. She pressed again on herself mercilessly, the view of Inuyasha's extreme state of arousal causing her to become even more excited. Her body shuddered and she grimaced in pleasure. "Ooooh…." A press on her pearl had her gasping harder. "Ooooo..ah…Inu…." she rubbed herself, slipping a finger in, her voice getting higher pitched. "Inu! Inuyasha!"

"What are you thinking about?" Inuyasha asked, gasping along with Kagome as he watched her fingers disappear inside her only to withdraw and emerge wet and dripping. "You…" Kagome sighed, fingering herself faster, unable to come to completion but nearing the point. "God!" Thrusting two fingers now, trying to get in as far as possible, Kagome sobbed as frustration rearing its head. "Inuyasha! God, please, help me, I need to cum, please!"

"What do you want me to do?" Inuyasha said heavily, his breath being dragged out of him in pants.

Sweat trickled in between her breasts. "I need you in me!" she begged, broken by her own game. "You're so hard….need to cum…only you….ah god! Inu!"

Inuyasha's control snapped. In the five steps to reach her, his clothes disappeared. He reached the writhing girl whose hand was soaked in her own sexual need and slammed himself down on her. Both gasped in pleasure as slick skin met slick skin as Inuyasha rubbed himself against Kagome's body, groaning out her name at the delicious friction. Inuyasha forced his mouth onto Kagome's, invading it as Kagome's lubricated hand reached for his shaft gratefully. She tugged on the sensitive flesh a little roughly, wanting Inuyasha with a fervor and a need so intense she was shaking with it.

"You asked for it," Inuyasha said, spreading her legs again, "you got it, bitch." He thrust his full length into her in one long undulation of his hips and almost came from how hot and wet she was. He groaned in sheer pleasure and began to pump into her roughly, not allowing her to lift her hips at all, keeping her in one place for maximum penetration. Kagome was crying out under him, her hands scrabbling to keep onto his shoulders, unable to do more then throw her head back and revel in him and how well he moved.

"Damn woman," Inuyasha mumbled weakly, fucking her ruthlessly as she continued to try to thrust back. He drew out fully before slamming back into her, pushing her ass into the wood below her harshly. "Cum for me," he snarled into her ear, his breath dragged from him in gasps. "Say my name and cum!" he demanded as his dick slid in and out in a rhythm that only got faster with each gasping moan and whimper Kagome made. "I'm fucking you, just like you wanted…show me, show me how good your feeling.." With one powerful thrust, he was in he so far that Kagome's cervix was touched.

"INUYASHA!" Kagome screamed helplessly as the feeling of him hard and thick inside her made her cum almost violently. Her body jerked upward on its own and the orgasm ripped through her, gripping Inuyasha to the point where the friction as he moved made him see stars.

He continued to thrust as Kagome came down off her high until he rotated in her, causing her still overly stimulated body to reach its peak again.

"Oooh," she whimpered, his dick causing her an almost painful resurgence of lust. "Ah! Harder!" she begged mindlessly. "HARDER!" she commanded, clutching to Inuyasha's shoulder as he began short, hard plunges. "Please please please!" she sobbed and Inuyasha obliged, filling her entirely, stretching her more then she thought she could go. A scream was ripped from Kagome as she was thrown into a back bending orgasm, scratching her nails down Inuyasha's back and wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him inside her as her walls held him close and throbbed around him. Inuyasha shuddered, tried to hold off but Kagome shifted and bit down on his shoulder. That little mix of pleasure pain sent him over the edge and he drew out before thrusting in one last time, cumming in a powerful crest of sensation that caused him to scream curses into the air.

He trembled above her for a moment, looking down at the picture she was, sweating and glowing, shivering as aftershocks shook her small frame. He carefully drew out and collapsed on top of her, barely stopping himself in time from crushing her against the uncomfortable stairs. He drew in a shaky breath and tried to calm himself, smoothing a hand over Kagome's sweat matted hair. Minutes passed as the two held the other close, heads spinning from the aftermath.

After a few minutes, Inuyasha asked curiously, "What the hell had you so ready to go?"

Kagome shrugged. "I don't know. Its always been one of my fantasies to get fucked-" Inuyasha growled. Kagome stared back and deliberately leaned back so her could see her breasts, still shiny with the sweat from their last session and his mouth. He licked his lips and stared entranced at the pink tips. "As I was saying," Kagome continued smugly. "It's always been one of my fantasies to fuck in the well house."

Inuyasha looked up at her face, a grin starting. "The stairs in particular?"

"Well, no actually…more the well itself," Kagome answered with a matching lecherous smile.

"Damn, I love the way you think woman," Inuyasha mumbled, leaning down to kiss her and fulfill the wish spoken with her eyes.

A public bell rang out and disturbed the peace of the well house. Kagome's eyes flew open. "NO!" she yelled in horror. "I only have fifteen minutes!" Shoving Inuyasha off her body in a panic. Inuyasha yelped as her push caused him to tumble down the steps to land in an ungraceful heap.

"Bitch, what the hell?" he shouted at the bottom only to see Kagome struggling to put on her bra and skirt at the same time. "Where are you going?" he demanded.

"I have to get to school and now I only have fifteen minutes! I'll never make it!" she answered, finally succeeding in getting her shirt and loafers back on. "Where the hell is my underwear?" she asked frantically.

"Oi," Came the self satisfied smirk from against the well.

Kagome looked to where he was pointing and groaned. At the other side of the well house were her new lace panties. She'd never get to them in time before Inuyasha could jump her and then distract her totally. Again.

"Come on down and get your underwear," Inuyasha sing songed, as aware as Kagome was of the consequences of doing that.

The petite high school girl smiled down at Inuyasha and smoothed down her short skirt that only reached to about seven inches below her butt. "No time. Guess I'll have to walk around panty-less today," she shrugged sweetly.

"The hell you will!" Inuyasha said incredulously, fury leaking into his words. He began to stalk toward the stairs. "Bitch, you ever mention anything like that again and I'll-"

"Oh! That reminds me!" Kagome said with a snap of her fingers. "OSUWARI!"

Inuyasha fell like a ton of bricks. Above him, though he could not see her, he could feel the girl sneer. "Did you think I forgot about that slut comment? No no no…Bad puppy." He was able to look up as she waved goodbye. "Jae na!" she called out and ran out the door.

Inuyasha rushed as soon as he could to follow her but the damn girl had gotten onto a bus. It would take too long to catch up to her…Inuyasha was about to storm back to the feudal era when a little piece of fabric caught his eye. He smiled evilly. _Two can play games_, he thought with a grin. _Wonder how Kagome would feel if everyone in her school knew just how naughty their classmate really was…._

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A/N: Well, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed it! Review and tell me what you think!


	3. Come Study With Me…

A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks for reviewing! I really appreciate it! Well, this chapter is a whole bunch of angst, character and plot development and also…. a **big fat lemon!**

**_WARNING_** Graphic sexual acts described in this chapter! You have been warned!

So there. No suing allowed. Any minors, Kindly go to a different story.

Hope you all enjoy it!

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**Chapter Three:** Come Study With Me…

"Kagome-chan?" Ayumi looked down at her sleeping friend. Reaching out, she shook Kagome's shoulder roughly.

"Wha-? Where's the jewel shard?" Kagome gasped as she woke up abruptly. Ayumi sighed.

"I have no idea where the jewel shard is but I do know that school's over," Ayumi said with a smile. Kagome groaned and flopped her head onto the desk. Ayumi snorted and dragged Kagome up.

"Come on," she said with a shake of her head, "let's get you home. Man, you need more sleep," Ayumi commented as she led the way out.

Kagome stretched, arms over her head before nodding sleepily and following her friend out the door. The two walked out of the high school building, saying nothing and just enjoying the company. Eventually the two settled down at a local coffee shop, the days of blissful snacking at Wacdonalds in the far past as they had gotten older and realized just how fattening those burgers and fries were.

"So, you had a big smile on. What were you dreaming about?" Ayumi asked with a grin as she sipped. "Or should I say who?"

"Shut up," said Kagome with a roll of her eyes. "I don't think of him all the time…"

"Only when you're feeling frisky?" Ayumi said with a giggle.

"Around him, that's most of the time," Kagome admitted with a sigh.

"Really?" laughed Ayumi. "Sounds better then Hojo was…"

Kagome groaned. "Again with Hojo? Isn't he an item with Eri now?"

Ayumi nodded. Her eyes sparkling, she leaned forward. "Do you want to hear some really juicy gossip?"

Kagome squealed and moved closer. "Always!"

"Well," Ayumi began, "I have heard that the only way Hojo can get it up is if he does it into an ass."

Kagome's eyes widened. "Him! No way!"

"There _were_ those rumors in junior high…." Ayumi reminded her.

"True," Kagome mused. She shot Ayumi a look. "Are you sure?"

"I heard it from the horses mouth…or ass," the curly haired teenager answered with a sly look in her eyes.

Kagome shook her head in astonishment. "She told you stuff like that? I never would have pictured him being like that. I totally pegged him for a missionary only sort of guy."

"Who wouldn't?" Ayumi agreed. The two thought for a moment about the oddity of Hojo having a slightly kinky sexual preference and grimaced simultaneously.

"Ugh, poor Eri, sleeping with that guy," Kagome said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"From what she told me, what he lacks for in, uh, a willingness to experiment, he makes up for in jewelry and gifts," Ayumi said, leaning forward. "Her last birthday, he bought her a diamond necklace with a one and a half carat rock at the end."

Kagome gasped. "A carat and a half!" she shouted, attracting attention from all the other customers. Ayumi hushed her frantically as Kagome blushed crimson, both bowing an apology.

"Gomen!" Kagome mumbled to the store as Ayumi stared at her friend.

"I cannot believe you just yelled in public," Ayumi muttered.

"But come on, all I ever got was…was jellied cow hoofs for my non-existent arthritis!" Kagome hissed, waving her arms for emphasis.

"If you gave him head, I'm sure he would have showered you with presents also," Ayumi said snidely.

"I only give head to guys I date," Kagome said primly.

"That's honorable, Kagome," Ayumi said sarcastically. "Really, you're bringing back the age of the Samurai's with that attitude."

Kagome grinned at a private joke. "Yeah, I guess you could say I'm saving the world."

Ayumi shot her friend an odd look. "What?"

"Nothing," Kagome replied with a shake of her head.

"If you had just told him…" Ayumi mumbled, having found about Kagome's lying when the two had left junior high. "You could have told him the truth. You told me!"

Kagome mentally snorted derisively. _Ayumi, you idiot, I told you that I was sneaking around with Inuyasha, skipping most of ninth grade and my mom just "happened" to never find out. _Kagome snorted. If she had really had that type of luck, she would have tried to find a way to bottle and sell it. Honestly, the fact that Ayumi had even bought that weak excuse had just reinforced Kagome's opinion that while Ayumi-chan was a great friend, a tactician she would never be.

"I mean, couldn't you just tell him that you weren't interested?" Ayumi pressed.

"He was so sweet, I felt guilty and also, well, sort of shy about being the first girl to dump a guy in our class," Kagome admitted, still not believing she had ever been that young.

"Nothing shy about you now," snorted Ayumi. "Did you catch Tachikawa staring at your boobs the entire class today?" she said with a shake of her head.

Kagome leaned back and smiled. "Indeed I did and I think that I will be receiving an 'A' in Chemistry this semester."

"Yeah and an invitation to his apartment for some 'private tutoring'," snorted Ayumi.

Kagome laughed and took a drink. "Inuyasha finds out about anything like that and he'll rip out Tachikawa's skinny throat."

Ayumi smiled and took another sip. "I wouldn't mind someone like that being jealous of me…"

"It get annoying," said Kagome with a soft frown.

"It just means he cares for you," Ayumi replied with a shrug. She waited for Kagome to say something but instead saw Kagome staring sadly down at her drink. Her sixth sense pricked, Ayumi leaned forward.

"Kagome….he does love you, right?" she asked suspiciously.

Kagome started. "What?"

Ayumi repeated her question, growing more and more concerned.

Kagome laughed uneasily. "Ayumi, those sort of things are a bit juvenile, don't you think?"

"No, I don't," Ayumi said firmly. "Kagome, if he doesn't love you, why are you sleeping with him?"

"Sometimes," Kagome said softly, "you do things for reasons more substantial then love…"

Ayumi stared at her friend and realized that not all was perfect in Kagome's world, far from it. "Kagome," Ayumi began hesitantly, stopping short as Kagome held up a hand.

"Ayumi-chan," Kagome said with a bitter smile. "Just drop it, okay?"

"But…"

"I'm serious. I don't want to talk about it," Kagome said firmly, avoiding her friends sometimes too perceptive gaze.

"Kagome-chan, I rea-"

"Drop it!" Kagome hissed suddenly with a furious glare.

Ayumi shifted uncomfortably but nodded her head. The two looked away from the other and cast about for something to ease the uncomfortable silence.

"So, uh, sucks about those Jets…" Ayumi said too brightly.

"The who?" asked Kagome blankly.

"The Jet- oh! Wait a minute! You have no idea who they are, do you?" Ayumi said, slapping her forehead.

"Um, no."

Ayumi shook her head. "Sorry, I forget not everyone has American family."

"How is your step-family?" asked Kagome, drinking her coffee. Ayumi's mother had remarried an American, the former ambassador for the United States to Japan.

Ayumi smiled. "It's weird because they are gai-jin but they can speak our language now…sort of. Have I ever told you when Thomas-chan thought the Japanese ambassador to America didn't speak English and so he asked when he could got to the, and I quote, crapper?"

Kagome's eyes widened. "In front of the ambassador?"

Ayumi giggled miserably. "Oh, it was horrible…."

Kagome and Ayumi strolled slowly toward the crosswalk where the two girls had always parted ways. It was almost twilight and Ayumi cheerfully and unknowingly filled the silence that-would-have-been had she been slightly more reticent. Kagome smiled and answered glibly and thoughtlessly.

"_If he doesn't love you, why are you sleeping with him?"_

Ayumi's previous words were echoing in Kagome's head and the feeling it put into her chest was painful.

_It's not like I could just tell her why!_ Kagome mentally grumbled. _It's far too complicated! And besides, Ayumi's a flighty fluff-for-brains with the mental stamina of a goldfish! Could she even understand what happened, why we are what we are?_ Kagome glared at the cement beneath her feet. _No one gets us…not even us. _Kagome felt the pressure on her chest increase. _We are two very messed up people and don't even really realize it. _

"Well, here we are!" Ayumi said brightly, jerking Kagome from her thoughts.

The time traveler felt like an ass when she saw Ayumi leaning against the traffic post, obviously having said the same chipper announcement a few times.

"Um, sorry Ayumi-chan. I have been paying attention to what you said but I

just drifted off for a bit," Kagome stuttered. "It must be that lack of sleep you mentioned!" she said with an uneasy laugh.

"Must be," agreed Ayumi with a knowing look in her eyes.

"Don't stare at me like that," Kagome demanded roughly. "I don't know what you're thinking but you get it out of your head!" Her fists clenched of their own violation. "I don't want your pity, I'm sick of pity!" Kagome ground out.

Ayumi looked at her friend of more then ten years and sighed. "Maybe it's not pity you're seeing but compassion, Kagome-chan."

"You are way off base about everything you think you know," spat out Kagome.

Ayumi smiled a sad smile. "If I'm so off base, then why are you still thinking about what I said in the coffee shop?"

Kagome's eyes widened but she quickly looked away. _She's way more perceptive then I thought…_ "Like I said," she mumbled, "I don't want to talk about it…"

Ayumi nodded slowly. "All right. Good night then…" The curly haired girl turned to walk across the street but stopped. Not looking back at her angry, lying friend, Ayumi said softly, "When did you get a temper?"

Her words were just loud enough for to carry to Kagome's ears.

"What?" Kagome asked, almost amused. "Everyone has a temper."

Ayumi shook her head. "Back in the coffee house, you almost yelled at me for just mentioning your boyfri-"

"It's a sensitive topic, okay?" Kagome cut in, annoyed that they were having this sort of discussion in public.

"We used to plague you about him all the time, remember? Eri, Yuka and I. Badger and butt in whenever we saw you. It was our favorite topic of conversation but you never lost your cool. What gave you a temper, Kagome? Or should I say who?" Not waiting for an answer, Ayumi strode across the street.

Kagome opened her mouth to yell a rude reply but caught herself in time. "Damn bitch, she doesn't know me," Kagome mumbled furiously as she walked to the shrine. "God, I can't believe Ayumi of all people would lecture me! About Inuyasha, no less! She was always the one who was so supportive of us! I can't stand her! That stupid, bratty, immature, bitchy wench! She talks too damn much!" Kagome snarled to herself.

Gradually, what she had said crept into her consciousness. _I have changed_, she thought miserably. Stumbling to a stop, Kagome knelt on the ground, the sunset dying in front of her. Shaking slightly, she dropped her head onto her knees.

_I sound like him, I think like him, I talk like him, I act like him…where did I go? What am I doing to myself, being with him?_ she wondered once again, a familiar feeling of inadequacy invading her confidence. _Why do I stay with him?_

It was the noiseless displacement of air behind her crouching form, the shiver up her spine, that told Kagome that he was there. Slowly, she got up, dusted off her skirt and walked toward the shrine steps, saying nothing to her unintentional tormentor. She almost wasn't surprised when she was scooped up and held securely in strong arms as insignificant things like gravity and physical human limitations were abandoned. Kagome merely closed her eyes and relaxed against his chest as Inuyasha leaped over the shrine steps. Depositing her gently at the bottom of the Goshinboku, Inuyasha looked down at the contemplative girl sitting serenely in the dirt.

"What's your issue?" he asked rudely. "Going to sleep in the middle of the pathway thingi."

Kagome looked up at her adorably rude and insufferably loveable hanyou and smiled to herself. "That's why. You take care of me."

"Of course I do," Inuyasha said, a little confused about this answer.

"You know, there are some questions that can't be answered…" Kagome said with a small smile.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Bitch, you are more confusing then usual." Sensing she was fine or as good as she was going to get, Inuyasha leapt into his favorite place to sit, the sixth branch of the Goshinoku. "What made you all thoughtful and shit?" he questioned.

"Not much. Ayumi and I went out and things got a little serious. We talked about topics that shouldn't be discussed but we won't do it again."

"What topics?"

"None of your business, dog boy."

Inuyasha 'humped' into the night air, clearly not pleased with this answer. "Tell me what you and the Ayumi talked about!" he demanded.

Kagome tapped the side of her face. "Oh, wait! We did discuss something. You!"

Inuyasha peered down at Kagome's form below him, leaning forward. "Really? What?"

Kagome flashed him a dirty smile. "Oh, nothing much. We were just wondering how you would feel about a threesome…."

There was a moment of silence.

"A what?" Inuyasha asked, terribly confused.

Kagome grinned. "A threesome is when three people engage in sexual intercourse all at once. With each other."

Kagome had never seen Inuyasha fall out of a tree before.

It was lovely the way he yelped just before he plunged to the earth. As Inuyasha sat incoherently on the ground, sputtering and spitting out twigs, Kagome smiled and went into the house for supper.

Suddenly, the night ahead was not looking nearly as grim.

Inuyasha scowled as he jumped into Kagome's bedroom. _Damn it, where is she?_ Inuyasha thought to himself furiously. After that ignoble tumble from the Goshinboku, he had yelled at Kagome. She, in turn, had yelled back in no uncertain terms that he was forbidden from seeing her family in such a terrible mood. (Or, as she called it, a snit.) He had listened grudgingly, more from having no desire to see her family then anything else. But, damn it, he was hungry!

Inuyasha dropped into a crouch, impatiently waiting for Kagome to bring him his supper, tapping his fingers against the carpet. There was nothing for him to do in here, not even Bouyo to torment!

_I should be downstairs, watching that interesting box with the pictures of me on it but nooo_, he snarled mentally, _I have to stay up the stairs in here!_

The white haired hanyou continued to fidget as his bored mind took inventory of the room. Inuyasha scowled at Kagome's frilly pink bed with its fragile air of girlishness, at her desk covered in those hellish textbooks and at the closet, full of her short skirts and tight tops. Lastly was a dresser in the corner, looking much like her desk.

Stifling a groan of annoyance, Inuyasha tried to reign in his temper and irritation. Sitting and having nothing to do was not his forte. He preferred action of any sort to mind-numbing stillness.

Walking over to the desk, Inuyasha rifled through it, finding nothing but more school related paraphernalia. Sighing, he went into her closet, fondly smiling at Kagome's junior high uniform, the last one she owned.

_She looked so cute in this stupid uniform. Always running around with her tits bouncing and yelling my name_, he mused affectionately as he ran a claw down the red sailor tie. _I loved these ties…would have been useful for restraints, _he thought with a perverted smirk. He looked though the closet for a bit longer but there was nothing that interesting in the closet if Kagome wasn't wearing it.

He occupied himself for a bit by imagining how his miko would look in the extra short jean shorts he has found in the back of the closet. Her in that and nothing else, pink tipped breasts free and jiggling gently whenever she breathed, the curve of her ass barely visible. She would beckon him closer, that lust filled look in her eyes and her sweet mouth would whisper dirty things of what he could do to persuade her to take them off…

Inuyasha shifted and deliberately shut the image out of his mind. Now was not the time to get a hard on. Inuyasha knew Kagome and the girl was the type to spend time with her family just so she would not have to confront him. It might be another hour before she came up and waiting that long to have her…comfort him was not acceptable. Inuyasha shrugged off his red kimono as the room was getting strangely hot and abandoned the closet with all its enticing clothes and moved to the dresser.

Opening the first drawer, he frowned at the extraordinary amount of female things inside it. There were those tampon and pads things, perfume, makeup, deodorant, comics, formal stationary, all together in one untidy jumble. "Boring," Inuyasha sighed as he opened the second drawer. Inside were more tops and sweaters and Inuyasha in vain searched for something exciting.

The third drawer revealed just that.

Inuyasha opened it, expecting more of the same dull garbage. Instead, he was surprised to see the most wonderful thing in the world: Kagome's bras and underwear. Eagerly sifting through the pile, he pulled out a pair of innocent white cotton underwear, arrogantly pleased to see the sewed up rip on one side. _Ah, yes,_ he remembered fondly, _these were that pair that got destroyed when I collected Kagome after a week of her being in the future era. Damn, but she was wet.._.

Sticking his sensitive nose into the crotch area, he sniffed and groaned appreciatively. It was a scent that he never got tired of, completely Kagome's. It was the delicate bouquet of lilies and mineral water (the girl spent way too much time in the hot springs) with a slightly musky tinge that denoted Kagome's arousal. Smelling her underwear was creating havoc on his libido and Inuyasha set aside the underwear reluctantly.

He hadn't had to pleasure himself since that glorious night when Kagome had allowed him to take her for the first time and Inuyasha had made a private vow that he would _never_ backslide into the situation where he had to do that sort of thing again. Unfortunately, that was the exact urge he had while smelling Kagome's panties. He just wanted to untie his hakama and take his now aching dick in his hand and move his hand over it, imaging it was Kagome's hand stroking him.

Inuyasha growled as his member throbbed. Taking a breath, he resolutely thought of disgusting things until he calmed down, like Kouga naked or Miroku and Sango having loud sex. After a few minutes passed, by sheer force of will, Inuyasha went totally limp Strangely proud of this, he continued to pick through Kagome's undergarments.

The bras and undies came mostly in matched pairs and were usually either white or black. There was a few risqué red ones, some flower patterns and even some sporty boy shorts. However, all were cotton and basically innocent. Inuyasha had no interest in those- he wanted the sexy lace ones, the new ones she had bought for when he was 'good'.

Digging through her drawer in earnest, needing to see if those lace panties had matching bras, Inuyasha smirked when he brushed the bottom of the drawer and felt something sensuous against his fingertips. Lifting the mass gently, Inuyasha's mouth dropped in delight.

Silk panties and bras, lace bras and underwear in vibrant 'fuck-me' colors were in his grasp. Sometimes an item was both silk and lace at the same time and Inuyasha had never appreciated material quite as much as he did right then.

_There are so many types_, Inuyasha thought in glee. Small panties that tied up the side, bras that were completely see thru, ones with tiny roses on it and another had tiny little dogs prancing over the fabric: Inuyasha loved them all. Of particular significance in Inuyasha's mind were the thongs that matched tiny bras that he knew would barely contain Kagome's luscious curves. One deceptively simple looking black silk set made Inuyasha gasp as a closer examination as the panties proved to be crotchless. Imagining what thoughts had prompted Kagome to buy these sort of things made Inuyasha feel flushed and his blood heavy in his veins.

Looking down at the floor to try and cool down, Inuyasha noticed something sticking out of the third drawer. He lifted out folded tissue paper and set it on the floor. Crouching next to it, Inuyasha lifted something out of the wrapping and flopped onto his butt abruptly in shock. Holding it up, his brain tried to process what it was seeing.

It was created out of dense black lace, just see thru enough to give flashes of flesh. The top was small and just stopped short of where Kagome's bellybutton would be. The inlaid bra was low cut and unmercifully semi-opaque. Inuyasha had a feeling that if Kagome would wear it, her pink nipples would _just _show and Inuyasha shuddered, knowing how it would drive him senseless, seeing her like that. The middle had a cream colored satin ribbon in a bow that was shot through the fabric. It matched the ribbon that went sweetly around the top of the tiny panties of the same black lace. There was almost nothing to the covering, as high cut as it was. It was a cup for her sex and not much else, a tease more then protection.

He turned it around and stared when he realized that the top was backless and just connected with three cream colored satin ribbons to be tied in a pretty bow. The back of the underwear was a semi-thong and Inuyasha knew instinctively that Kagome would look beautiful with her ass up in the air, barely covered by this alluring bit of clothing.

So distracted by the intense visuals the lingerie was bombarding his mind with, Inuyasha failed to notice the door opening.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome whispered furiously, just remembering not to yell. She slammed the door behind her and stormed into her room, ready to raise hell. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, looking through my panties!"

Inuyasha slowly raised his eyes to her, amber almost brown with lust. Holding up her naughtiest bit of lace, Inuyasha drawled slowly, "So when would I get to see this on you? When I was a really really good boy?"

Kagome cleared her throat. The intense look in his eyes was making her nervous, it was so forceful and passionate. "You're never good," Kagome replied, mentally smacking herself as her voice emerged husky and audibly sexually excited.

Inuyasha smirked and unhurriedly removed his shirt of coarse white linen, baring his rather magnificent chest for Kagome's perusal. He leaned back, bracing himself on his arms and shifted so that his lower back was on her carpet. Sweat had already formed on his body and his muscles undulated under his skin with his movements. Long silver hair was draped over his shoulders and clung suggestively to his back and abdomen. Unable to stop herself, Kagome shivered and looked her fill at Inuyasha's body, feeling a fire begin to lick at her insides.

Inuyasha smirked up at her, pleased with her reaction to his body and threw the lace lingerie toward her. "Put it on," he demanded.

Kagome didn't bother to catch it, allowing the expensive material to drop onto the ground. "I don't recall you being very good," she answered softly with one eyebrow cocked.

"I said to put the thing on," Inuyasha said softly, a hint of a growl infused into the arrogant demand.

Leaning against the doorway, Kagome smirked rudely at Inuyasha's obvious growing annoyance. "No."

Inuyasha stared at her and licked his lips in hunger. "Tell your mom that you're studying for a big exam and then lock the door behind you."

"Why?"

"Because once you do, you're going to put on that lacy thing," Inuyasha stated calmly.

"I already said-!"

"-and then," Inuyasha said, interrupting Kagome easily, "I'm going to peel that thing off you with my teeth." The hanyou licked his lips. "Slowly," he whispered huskily.

Kagome stared in shock at her formerly shy hanyou, mouth agape and eyes wide. Finally, she dragged something out of her mouth. "Have you lost your mind? We're in my house, in my bedroom! We can't have sex here! My family is downstairs! No way!"

Inuyasha stared at the contradictory girl, her body calling to his and her aura beckoning him nearer as her words and actions tried to keep him away. "You don't know what you want," he stated, slightly amused.

"How indecisive do you think a firm 'no' can be?" Kagome retorted.

"You don't know what you want," Inuyasha repeated. "Luckily for you, I know what you want."

"Please!" Kagome snorted. "That line is beyond cheesy, you…." Her voice trailed off as Inuyasha settled onto his hands and knees.

Moving slowly, Inuyasha crawled toward Kagome, his muscles moving sensuously beneath shining skin and his eyes intent on their prize. His body seemed to be rippling as each limb appeared to move separate from the others and long silver hair dragged on the floor as Inuyasha stalked the frozen Kagome, moving closer and closer.

"What are you doing?" Kagome questioned nervously. _He looks like Buyou before the damn cat jumps on a bird! _she thought wildly, inching back against the wall next to her door.

Not bothering to answer, Inuyasha leaned up against Kagome's upper legs, amber eyes gleaming with an almost evil light. "Open the door," Inuyasha commanded, the vibrations of his throaty growl sending a delicious thrill through Kagome's body.

Breathing heavily, the feeling of Inuyasha's head near the part that loved him most clouding her mind, Kagome shook her head weakly.

She felt more then saw him smile and it forced a sigh from her throat.

Inuyasha opened his mouth and placed his fangs gently around the soft tissue of the area just above her slit. Looking up at her devilishly, he gave the sensitive flesh a tug. "Come study with me…" he whispered sexily. "I want to study you…"

Kagome looked down as Inuyasha began to rub his nose into the indentation of her belly button and lower places, silent encouragement to 'study' with him.

"_If he doesn't love you, why are you sleeping with him?"_

Running a hand through Inuyasha's hair, Kagome flung open the door to her room and called down the hall, "Mom?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I have to study and I don't want to be interrupted, okay? Not for anything!"

"All right. I'm going to be going to bed now! Good luck sweetie!" Mrs. Higurashi replied from the kitchen.

Kagome closed her bedroom door softly and turned back to the hanyou on his hands and knees before her.

"I don't want you looking while I change," Kagome said seriously as she picked up the lingerie.

Inuyasha nodded, amenable now that he had gotten his way and turned around. Facing the wall, Inuyasha grinned with a feeling of anticipation growing the pit of his stomach. The sound of rustling clothing stirred his imagination and, inspired, he stood up to pull off his pants.

"What are you doing?" Kagome asked in surprise.

"Getting naked," he answered with a smile directed to the wall as he loosened the tie and allowed the baggy fire rat pants to fall onto the ground.

"I can see that," Kagome replied dryly. "Nice ass, by the way."

Inuyasha smirked as he clasped his hands behind his shoulders and stretched his whole body in one oddly cat-like motion. Behind him, he heard Kagome suck in a breath as he purposefully stretched his back and arm muscles. "Keh," he said smugly.

"Oh, shut up, you narcissist," Kagome muttered in embarrassment.

"I have a reason to be vain," Inuyasha replied, enjoying how Kagome's aroma of excitement had grown.

Settling back into a sitting position, Inuyasha waited for Kagome's fumbling and cursing to stop as she put on the negligee.

"I can't tie this thing!" she complained.

"I'll help you," Inuyasha offered.

"No thanks. Sweet of you to offer though," came the droll reply. "Ah! Think I have it!"

As quiet descended onto the room, Inuyasha's urge to turn around grew and grew. Holding himself back with difficulty, he cleared his throat and asked if he could look now.

Kagome took a breath for courage. She had never even worn anything remotely as overtly sexual as this and to wear it in front of anyone would be a challenge. Wearing it for Inuyasha was taking every bit of spunk she had acquired over the years. _He's seen you naked! This is more clothing then that! _she argued mentally. Kagome looked down at herself and could feel her entire body flush. Somehow, with this on, she felt more naked then she felt when she was actually nude…

"Okay, you can look," she whispered finally, consciously stopping her hands from attempting to cover herself.

_At last!_ Inuyasha's mind sang out. Whipping around, he eagerly looked at Kagome in her most enticing outfit. As he took in her delicate frame, all of its curves and planes on beautiful exhibition, his mouth went dry. Large blue grey eyes, eyes that were slightly frightened, looked at him for comfort. Her face was framed by free flowing black hair, full and a bit tangled; it begged to be caressed. Her body was a study in female perfection, all long legs and pert breasts. True, they weren't as full as some might like it nor was her body as unmarred as some would have preferred but to Inuyasha, Kagome encapsulated beauty and sex appeal.

The lace was just as taunting as he had imagined. It concealed and revealed all at once and Inuyasha was positive that he could die happy looking at an insecure Kagome dressed like this. The girl before him moved uncomfortably and the shift in body weight made the tiny panties ride higher and the half shirt flashed more of her abdomen and the sides of her torso were exposed for one glorious instant.

Inuyasha walked over slowly, comfortable in his skin, his only covering the sacred necklace he was forced to wear. Kagome stared as he came toward her, his skin gleaming in the weak moonlight streaming in from her window. The power he exuded was a palpable force and Kagome swallowed heavily. His clawed hands reached out to gently run dangerous hands along the sides of her stomach. Eyes open, Kagome watched Inuyasha examine her through touch, stroking her exposed skin as lightly as he could.

"What do you think?" Kagome asked, head already growing dazed from expert caresses. Inuyasha paused, hands resting on the curve of Kagome's hips. Standing back, he looked her up and down with a slow and measured glance. He tilted her chin up so that her eyes had nowhere to look except into his. "Tempting…deliciously tempting," Inuyasha said hoarsely. "I've seen you naked and I didn't know you were built like this," he admitted ruefully.

"I look nice?"

Inuyasha chuckled a bit hoarsely. Seeing sweet Kagome in this seductress's outfit had turned his bones to jelly and his dick to rock hard readiness at some point during the walk to her. "If sex- hot, dirty, mind numbing sex- had a physical form, it wouldn't hold a candle to how you look right now," Inuyasha murmured.

Kagome gave him a happy look and felt the insecurities about her body recede to the back of her mind. Linking her arms behind his neck, Kagome reached up and gave him a chaste kiss of thank you, a light pressing of her lips onto his and nothing more.

Inuyasha settled into the enjoyable comfort of Kagome's mouth, letting the moment flow. The quiet breath of Kagome, her closed eyes and black lashes lying quietly against her skin, the exhalation of her nose on his cheeks, the slight smile that was somehow always present when they kissed like virgins again…It all made this childlike prelude sometimes more exhilarating then the act itself.

The sex and the erotic touches would come later, he knew that. It was how all their encounters ended. Yet, this sweetness was somehow closer and more significant. Perhaps because it reminded of the times when seeing the other naked would render both speechless and blushing for days. _It reminds us about how close we were before we ruined our relationship by having _sex, Inuyasha thought, the regret a familiar emotion. _We started this for all the wrong reasons and now…now we can't stop_.

Kagome pressed her body closer to his, licking his bottom lip as a reminder that now was not a time to daydream. Inuyasha obliged, forcing her mouth open as he opened his. Kagome thrust her tongue into his mouth, expecting the usual oral mauling she had learned to enjoy. Yet, to Kagome's confusion, Inuyasha seemed to want to be gentle, caressing and subduing her zeal with tender strokes and delicate exploration. Inuyasha cupped her face in his large hands as if it was a treasure, lightly caressing her skin with the pads of his thumbs. He took his time, investigating her mouth with an erotic slowness that was more then unusual. It was unprecedented and utterly unnerving.

They might kiss slowly, they might have kissed lightly but never before had there been any emotion greater then lust in their kisses. There was now and Kagome was at a complete loss.

She felt herself drowning in this assault of Inuyasha's, this new softness, this new battle tactic. He was so kind and generous as he delved into her mouth, played with her senses so gently, as if he knew how close she was to breaking.

Kagome was having none of it.

Shoving Inuyasha away violently, Kagome took a step back. Warily staring at the hanyou in a way she hadn't for years, she looked Inuyasha up and down.

"Don't you _dare_ pull this sort of shit on me now!" Kagome whispered in a furious voice. She could still feel how sweetly he had been holding her, how he had acted in the way a man in love would. _Even after all this time, I still want it. I want it all_, Kagome thought in self bitterness. _When will I grow up?_

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Inuyasha said, growing angry, affection thrown to the wayside as an easier emotion, fury, pulled at him.

"I don't want that treatment! Don't you do that!" Kagome hissed.

"What the hell is 'that'? I don't know what you're talking about!" Inuyasha growled.

"That, that mockery of making love!" Kagome burst out. "I don't want you like that!"

"I was being nice! You always complain that I'm too rough!" Inuyasha explained, keeping his temper by only the slimmest of margins.

"Yeah, well, leave the emotions at the door," snapped Kagome. "You can be gentle but I don't want anything attached to it!"

"Don't be so arrogant, you god damn bitch! There was no emotion attached to shit!"

"_I am not blind!" _Kagome exploded. "Don't treat me like an idiot, that I don't sense pity sex when it's there!"

Inuyasha clenched his fists. "I was just trying to be a nice guy-"

"You suck at it," Kagome said caustically.

"Shut up!" Inuyasha shouted.

"_If he doesn't love you, why are you sleeping with him?" _rang in Kagome's mind.

"Fuck her," Kagome mumbled as Inuyasha furiously dragged her to him. "Fuck everyone in the world," she muttered viciously as the force of Inuyasha's mouth on her neck pushed her knees to hit her bed.

"That's a bit much, don't you think?" Inuyasha asked sarcastically as his hands pulled at her.

Falling gracelessly onto her pink frilly bedspread, Kagome pushed herself onto her elbows to watch attentively as Inuyasha crawled over her body, pushing down on her body with his. He ignored her struggles and held her down with his arms and weight. "Bitch, you said you didn't want it gentle," he taunted.

Kagome glared out from under him, trying to squirm out from his hold. "I said you can be gentle but don't be emotional! There's a difference between the two!"

"Keh. I'm not here to talk," Inuyasha said, dismissing her words.

When he kissed her again, it was what Kagome had expected from the beginning, rough and intrusive. She welcomed back the Inuyasha she understood and pushed against him with her hips. Inuyasha let out a warning growl and forced more of his tongue into her mouth, angling his head for more leverage.

Kagome groaned into his mouth and grazed his left fang with her tongue. Cutting herself slightly, her sweet blood filled both of their mouths. The coppery taste was slightly nauseating to Kagome but Inuyasha felt his entire body jerk at the taste of blood, his penis instantly becoming engorged from arousal. Kagome smirked from under him; she had long since learned how to use his demon half to her advantage.

Inuyasha snarled and drew back. "You think you're pretty smart, don't you?" He leaned down to bite her and rubbed his sweaty skin against Kagome's for a too brief moment. Kagome arched under him as her breasts clung to his chest through the lace.

"Inu…!" she gasped out. Inuyasha gasped along with her, forgetting his original intentions. She always felt too good for his peace of mind.

"Getting rid of this," he mumbled hoarsely, reaching up to rip off the lace barrier.

"Don't you dare rip this!" Kagome threatened. "It was expensive!"

"As if I care."

"What, are you a liar now too?" Kagome asked, tugging on his forelock of hair.

Inuyasha glared at her. "What?" he snapped.

"You said you'd take it off with your teeth," Kagome reminded him, her voice low and tempting. "You going back on your word?" She tsked. "And here I was, looking forward to that…"

Inuyasha raised one eyebrow. "Never say I don't keep my word," he said as he pushed her back down, a sexy growl showing Kagome just how strongly her words had affected him. One thick, muscled thigh went in between her softer ones and rubbed against her. Kagome let out a throaty moan and muttered his name.

Inuyasha smirked but concentrated on his self-assigned task. Pulling apart the bows that had held the shirt from behind, Inuyasha lowered his head onto Kagome's collarbone and nipped it. She took a sharp breath but otherwise didn't move. Inuyasha kept on nibbling as he moved his head over the top curve of her breast. Kagome's hands began to thread through luxurious white hair while Inuyasha placed hot, wet kisses over her breasts, traveling slowly between the two. A little teeth and then a moist kiss to tease with, he laved her breasts but ignored her aching nipples mercilessly.

"Inuyasha…" Kagome urged breathlessly, striving not to move but finding it impossible to ignore the wet heat permeating the lower regions of her body.

Inuyasha let out a wordless noise of eagerness as she shifted against him and ran his rough tongue over the pink tips. Kagome's back arched under him as he attacked her with a precision and cruelty he usually reserved for battle. Tugging on a bud with his teeth, Inuyasha felt a thrill as Kagome groaned and bucked.

"Kagome," he whispered and finally set his teeth at the edge of the lace top. Yanking at the delicate material with temperate strength, Inuyasha pulled the lingerie top down Kagome's body. Making sure Kagome felt his fangs as they grazed her sensitive skin, he held onto the top until he lifted it off her trembling body. The fabric stuck a bit on his canines as Inuyasha took a hand and dropped the sexy piece onto the floor next to the bed.

He looked down at Kagome and her torso that glowed from his mouth and sex induced sweat. Gracefully, Inuyasha placed the tip of his tongue against the top of satin and lace panties and licked his way up her mouth, flicking his tongue into her bellybutton, ravishing the sensitive sides of her stomach and once again torturing her breasts, licking her nipples with slow strokes. He descended onto her mouth with a moan, luxuriating as he drowned in the perfume of her arousal.

"Inuyasha," Kagome breathed out, rubbing against him, throwing one leg over his and forcing him to press against her intimately against her.

"Don't do that," he moaned as her wet heat teased him. He pushed into her and Kagome's nails dug into his back as the sensation caused her to whimper. The sound of Kagome's loss of control was forcing a chain reaction as Inuyasha felt his control slip away as well. He started to move his mouth down to her panties, wanting to rip them away and then to eat and suck on her until she screamed.

Kagome shook her head frantically as she felt him move and locked him in close to her.

"I have my honor bitch and I mean to keep my word," Inuyasha said, panting as he undid the bows that held her panties closed.

Kagome pressed herself against him desperately, knowing only that she wouldn't be able to take it if his heavy warmth left her, mindless with a primal need for sex. "Stay," she moaned and arched her back. "Please…Inuyasha…Stay..."

Inuyasha moaned from the back of his throat. "God, I love it when you do that…" he whispered into her ear before he moved down her body.

The brief rush of air cooled both Kagome's skin and her brain. As Inuyasha lowered his head and traveled down her body, she saw her favorite target. With a devious look in her eyes, Kagome started to suck at Inuyasha's responsive ears, licking the inside of the furry appendages. Inuyasha closed his eyes in reflex, moaning and shuddering helplessly as Kagome's sweet mouth destroyed him.

"Kag…don't…_ah god! Kagome_!" Inuyasha cried out as Kagome nipped at the tip of an ear. There were no smart words, no mocking remarks or rude comments. They were both beyond that now.

Breathing heavily, Inuyasha looked up at Kagome and, with one movement, tore off her underwear. He wasted no time and plunged into Kagome's wet center. Above him, Kagome half screamed in response, writhing under his mouth. Inuyasha immediately found her most sensitive bundle of nerves, engorged and pulsating, waiting to be devoured and suckled. Inuyasha delighted in hearing Kagome start to instinctively moan his name as he licked the area surrounding her clit, teasing and making her suffer with the immense pleasure. Needing to taste it again, Inuyasha sucked on the tiny flesh, pulling it into his mouth as far as he could and then flicking the end of it with his tongue.

Kagome choked on her scream and felt her body tighten, her insides coiling as the pressure built in all her lower areas, the explosion imminent.

Inuyasha groaned as Kagome's arousal became over powering. Gasping now, he forced two fingers into her all at once, thrusting them in and out, moving with slow, long strokes that were making Kagome twist under his delicious invasion. Inuyasha kept his pace even though Kagome arched into him mindlessly, even when she began to plead to hurry and make her cum.

"Move with me," he urged her, his voice octaves lower then it was normally.

Kagome whimpered, unable to decide if she loved or loathed his too talented fingers.

"Move," he urged her breathlessly, the urge to just spread her open and plunge into her becoming stronger and stronger. "Move, damn it!"

With a helpless moan, Kagome jerked and began to pump her hips in time to his fingers. The clawed digits went deeper and further, filling her to the brim. Yet, it wasn't enough.

"Inu…" she whispered breathlessly. "Inuyasha, please…"

The hanyou withdrew his fingers slowly, enjoying the anger that was now spicing Kagome's scent.

"Damn it, you're insufferable!" Kagome spat out. "Is it so hard to help me cum? Do you need an instruction manual? Is- _Ah! GOD!"_ Kagome broke off with a cry as Inuyasha lowered his mouth onto her again for a quick lick.

"Now you'll cum," Inuyasha murmured against her and he roughly began a rhythm with his tongue that had Kagome struggling for breath above him.

"Not…" her hips arched as Inuyasha's finger began to play with her clit. "Not this…"

she asked, wanting a different body part to be penetrating her but Inuyasha was relentless, needing to taste her as she came.

Her hands fisting in his hair, Kagome moaned and did her best to hold off. The burn was spreading through her body and her muscles all seemed to spasm at the same moment. The feeling of his hot, wet tongue rotating leisurely inside her was making her wet and insatiable, the sheets twisted and snarled underneath her heaving body.

_Why is he so good at this?_ Kagome thought, once again failing to restrain a lustful moan induced by the stabs of his tongue inside her. _It's not fair!_

Inuyasha redoubled his efforts; Kagome's little sounds of pleasure were driving him out of his mind, his dick was painful in its fullness. She was close, he could feel it. If only she would let herself go….

Lifting his head, he caught her gaze, passion filled gold meeting lust filled blue. "Relax," he urged, fingers replacing the absent tongue. "Relax and let it happen," he demanded quietly, gently stroking her. His teeth returned to her center, nipping and biting at her, a rough tongue creating havoc in its wake.

There was no stopping it.

Feeling as if she would die at any moment, Kagome broke into sobbing gasp as her climax hit hard, throwing her back high into the air and her shoulders deeply into the mattress. "_Inuyasha_!" she hissed, grasping his skull as she came fiercely. For a few moments, that's all there was in her existence, immense pleasure and glorious completion.

Shivering, she looked down at Inuyasha. He raised his head to stare at her. Her cum was covering his face, on his nose, cheeks, mouth and chin. Her juices were even in his hair and, as she watched with bated breath, some dripped off to land on her quivering stomach.

Inuyasha shuddered. The taste of her orgasm was almost alive in his mouth. "I want you," he whispered seriously.

Kagome moaned as all her blood seemed to rush back to her center. "Inuyasha…" she whispered, reaching out to him.

Swallowing desperately to moisten his throat, he flipped Kagome over, stomach down.

"I…need.." Inuyasha groaned out, hands already pushing her onto hands and knees. Cursing breathlessly, he hurriedly pushed on Kagome's head, forcing it deeper into the bed and her ass into the air.

The inflamed hanyou spent a moment relishing the view, making himself suffer as his dick jumped in response to the pleasurable view of Kagome prostrate. Her legs were long and smooth, her back sloped erotically as it went from curved shoulders to her sweetly rounded ass, plump and round, begging for rough penetration. Inuyasha groaned in appreciation and stroked a soft cheek in sexual devotion.

Kagome let out a sigh and relaxed onto her elbows._ I can't cum again so soon but I'll fake it_, she decided kindly. _After all, he did make me orgasm already. The guy deserves a show of how wonderful he is…._

Inuyasha glared down unseen at the back of Kagome's head. _She sighed!_ He thought furiously. _She FUCKIN' sighed when I'm going do her!_

Enraged, Inuyasha dug his claws into her deeper then he realized as he grasped her shoulder and flipped her abruptly onto her back. The skin on her shoulder easily parted underneath his sharp claws and blood spurted out.

"You-!" Kagome started but, as her eyes widened at the sight of how infuriated Inuyasha truly was, the words of reprimand for her injury died before they were said.

Inuyasha snarled wordlessly at the frightened Kagome. She shifted uneasily and instinctively tried to shut her legs. The blood was soaking into the sheets under her but the pain was inconsequential to the promised fury in Inuyasha's eyes.

Amber started to bleed red and Inuyasha jammed a knee in between her thighs. "Spread them," he hissed.

Kagome mutely shook her head, knowing that fighting him was a bad idea but unable to stop herself.

Inuyasha began to play with her nipples, twisting and pulling on them, stopping just short of pain. Kagome tried to bat his hands away but it was pointless. Her body was responding to him and there was no stopping it.

The scent of her reblooming arousal mixed with the heady aroma of her fresh blood. Inuyasha closed his eyes to better savor that odd but most beguiling fragrance.

"Inuyasha? Why are you so mad?" Kagome asked in a gasp, wriggling under his hands as one dipped to play with her clit and one simultaneously massaged a hard nipple.

"You didn't seem very interested in me," Inuyasha said harshly.

"I am interested!" Kagome protested, voice ragged and panting.

"That pissed me off royally…" Inuyasha growled. He flicked her distended clitoris with a claw and Kagome whimpered and threw her hips upward in response.

Inuyasha sat up on his knees. The moonlight coming in through her window lent a glow to him, everything about him shining in the night sun. "Get onto your stomach and stick your ass into the air," he ordered.

Kagome obeyed after a moment, growing wetter as his glare increased in fury. She squirmed a bit, trying to subtly relieve the tension that was paining her from between her thighs.

Inuyasha smirked. He could smell how wet she was, how much she wanted and needed him and his body. Grasping the sides of her hips tightly, Inuyasha plunged into her with no warning. He moaned loudly as her hot wetness enveloped him, squeezing him firmly and making his head spin.

"So good," he mumbled breathlessly, his hips pressing up against her ass with a solid and audible smack. Drawing out with deliberately slow rhythm, he flowed in and out of her, making sure she felt him with every controlled thrust. He never faltered, never paused, too far gone to stop now, the result of too much foreplay and too little actual sex.

Kagome thrust back onto him, wanting to feel him as deep as he could. "Again," she moaned, head thrown back. "Ah, again, more…," she begged, impaling herself willing onto what was filling her farther then she had thought possible.

"Unh…" Inuyasha moaned, his hands slipping as sweat dripped. He loved hearing her bed for him, beg for his sex and his fucking.

"Bored?" he snarled breathlessly.

"Fuck me, ah god, please…do me… harder…" Kagome whispered, head hanging onto her bed, unable to support it. Inuyasha moaned and his hands bit into her flesh.

The thrust quickly went out of control, hard, deep and swift. Inuyasha was groaning continuously, his voice rising as he slid fully into her, gasping for breath he couldn't catch. She was penetrated fully with every plunge and being fully encased in the most secret places in Kagome's body so well was driving Inuyasha to whimper and Kagome to almost sob.

"More!" Kagome cried out, moaning and pounding herself onto him.

"Yes," Inuyasha agreed breathlessly, increasing the strength behind his thrusts.

Kagome clawed at the bedspread under her at the rough invasion, hating the fact that she was loving every moment of this nearly brutal fucking.

"Cumming," Inuyasha hissed, throwing his back into his movements, lifting Kagome's feet off the bed, making her support all her weight on her arms. She didn't care, it felt sinfully good, thick and hot. His dick slid in so deep and powerfully that Kagome was pushed forward and both shuddered simultaneously at the sensation.

The room echoed with moans, whines of pleasure and groans, the two on the bed mindlessly reaching for that apex of pleasure.

Inuyasha shut his eyes as he felt his body tighten. He wanted this lustful exchange to last but he needed to cum…he wanted to explode into her, revel in her cries of pleasure as he came hard inside of her.

Kagome mewled her pleasure as she felt Inuyasha's hardened member stiffen even further as he couldn't withstand the pressure any longer.

"Ah…uh...unh…," he ground out, thrusting into her with each senseless moaned word. "I…ah shit! Shit! Ka…_Kagome_!" he shouted helplessly as his dick rammed in one last time before his body strained and released into her. His back arched and his eyes were squeezed tight as intense sensations bombarded him.

Kagome felt her entire self implode as Inuyasha's hot cum soaked her insides, his heat only increasing to searing levels. "_Ah!"_ she screamed out, body shuddering under him, the orgasm washing through her like a tidal wave, ripping her mind to fulfilled remnants of what it had been. It felt like something had twisted her entire insides and left her incapable of movement.

The two gasped for breath in the aftermath, neither saying a word. With careful movements, Inuyasha drew out of Kagome and settled on top of her. They laid there, Kagome pressed into the mattress with Inuyasha a comfortable weight on her back, their legs entangled and hands clenched tightly. Moments passed in contented silence.

Outside, the moon was waning. Morning was swiftly on its way.

Inuyasha struggled up, moving off the bed. Heedless of his nudity, he gathered his clothes and silently began to dress.

Gathering a sheet to cover herself with one hand, Kagome sat up cautiously. "Where are you going?" she asked quietly.

Inuyasha shot her an unreadable look. "I'm going back." He shrugged carelessly. "I got what I came for." Without a glance back at the girl on the bed, he hopped out the window.

Kagome's body felt frozen. It was only once a familiar electric blue light shone from within the well house that she could move.

"_If he doesn't love you, why are you sleeping with him?"_

Kagome cracked her door a bit, seeing the coast was clear. She silently gathered up the dirtied sheets from her bed and, after tying a towel around herself, slipped into the bathroom.

_Sheets are bloody_, she thought clearly. _Gotta clean them before I put them into the hamper for Momma to see. _First turning on the shower water, Kagome got a bit of soap and scrubbed away at the soiled bedspread until the blood, female orgasm and semen were barely visible. Leaving them in the sink to soak, she gingerly stepped into the shower, soap in hand. The water stung.

"_I got what I came for."_

Kagome glanced up and was arrested by her own reflection in the mirror. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were wide and lost. One upper arm and a shoulder were bleeding freely under the pounding water, the claw marks visible.

"_I got what I came for."_

Bruises she hadn't realized existed were on her hips and ass, grip marks etched in black and blue. Her breasts look abraded and were painful to the touch.

"_I got what I came for."_

One inner thigh had teeth marks and the other bled from a fang puncture. Her neck and collarbone was covered in dominating and possessive bites, visible and red.

"_I got what I came for."_

The soap dropped onto the floor as tears welled up.

"_If he doesn't love you, why are you sleeping with him?"_

With the water running loudly and with her entire family asleep, Kagome collapsed to the floor of the shower, sobbing as her heart re-broke.

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A/N: I know! I'm sorry! But it's necessary! Trust me on this! Review and tell me how much you guys hate Inuyasha now! I'll try to update within the next two weeks! Hope you liked it!


	4. Silent Recriminations

A/N: Before reading this chapter, I strongly suggest you reread the last one because of the long space between the chapter updates. (Sorry about that!)

Enjoy!

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Chapter Four: Silent Recriminations- 

Inuyasha barely cleared the well before the vomit came up his throat.

Falling onto the grass, digested food and bile rose unwanted and unstoppable. Inuyasha gagged on the thick and vile flavor of his own stomach contents, the taste and feel of it maddening him. Panting in between bouts of throwing up, he tried to stem the violent up-heaving but it was no use. Disgorging everything, the vomit stained his clothing, dripped down his chin and clogged his throat. It caught in his hair, staining the white a yellow brown.

Soon, there was nothing left to expel but yellow, thin and acidic stomach bile. Inuyasha winced as his throat and mouth were burned as the acerbic stomach juices clawed its way up his system. Gasping, Inuyasha waited for his body to settle. Choking helplessly, he held onto his sides as his body convulsed and spewed.

Eventually Inuyasha's stomach calmed somewhat and with muscles shuddering and head aching, he sat down heavily next to the Goshinboku. He knew he should go up into its branches, knew he should go for its relative safety but for the life of him, he could not move. Everything was painful and moving wasn't an option.

_I'll wait until my head stops spinning, _he thought dazedly. Gulping air into starving lungs, he inhaled deeply, trying to get the cloying taste of throw up from his palate. Swallowing, he relived the moment:

"_I'm going back." He shrugged carelessly. "I got what I came for." Without a glance back at the girl on the bed, he hopped out the window._

Inuyasha shuddered again, remorse grabbing him by the throat. "Why…?" he mumbled to no one. "Why…" He winced as Kagome's shocked wide eyes flashed through his memory. Dropping his forehead into his hands,Inuyasha wondered once again why he hadn't been killed at birth.

_I'm such a son-of-a bitch_, he thought, not even realizing the truth of his words. _Why can't I ever do what I mean, say the right thing or do the right thing?_ he wondered angrily. Sometimes he wanted to grab Kagome by the shoulders, shake her and scream into her face, 'Don't you get it? I don't mean what I say! I don't mean to hurt you!'

Chuckling darkly, Inuyasha rested his head against the rough trunk behind him. _Stupid asshole what you are, saying those sort of things to her…she should have sat you into the next century. I deserve it_, he acknowledged.

The evening had started out well enough. There had been lingerie and comforting her, he had eaten a marvelously bland supper and they had been getting along for once. _When did I go wrong? _For a moment, the thought went through his head that perhaps Kagome had killed the moment but Inuyasha dismissed this as his usual useless thoughts. _Kagome doesn't do that sort of thing. She's not the monster…_

With blinding intensity, the memory of Kagome's flesh, ripped open and bleeding freely, echoed through his mind and he almost began vomiting again. Remembering how strongly her blood had affected him, Inuyasha whined and slammed his head against the trunk of the Goshinboku. _I'm the monster…How could I react like that? She could have bled to death and I wouldn't have cared…_

His stomach clenched as the mere memory of Kagome's blood scent washed over him and Inuyasha wanted to scream as unstoppable arousal collided with his misery. Miyouga had once said that blood lust was a normal demon mating habit…

_Normal my ass!_ Inuyasha thought a bit desperately as he hardened against his will.

He shifted and tried to concentrate on anything else, anything at all except the smell and look of his sweet Kagome staring up at him, blood covered and frightened.

It was of no use.

Gasping and as hard as he had been barely half an hour before in bed with his Kagome, Inuyasha closed his eyes and tried to not be affected by the memory. _I love her,_ he yelled inside his head. _People in love don't imagine ripping into each other, they don't enjoy making the other bleed as they cum…_

His dick was swollen and he felt it move with a pulsating beat, as if someone was sucking on it, leaving heat and the best type of pain behind.

The thought of her doing that was too much to withstand. Inuyasha groaned helplessly, unable to stop the desire from filling him, unable to hold himself back from loosing the ties to his hakama and stroking himself. Even though it was for the reasons he wanted to deny, he couldn't stop himself. He just wasn't strong enough.

_Monster,_ he cursed himself. _Monster…_

Moving his hand roughly over the overly sensitized flesh, Inuyasha struggled to breath as the glorious feeling of being in Kagome's heat while she bled beneath him filled him again.

"Monster," Inuyasha mumbled senselessly. With inhuman strength, he took his hand away from himself. _I will not do this, not to seeing her like that!_ He swore mentally. _Not again!_

Trying to fill his lungs, Inuyasha groped his way up the tree trunk, standing on unsteady legs. _Monster…_Sweat dripped down his face and, with no thought, he wiped it away with a careless hand.

Her blood smell hit him like a slap. Groaning as his instincts reared and screamed in response to her, Inuyasha was insensible as he slumped to the ground. Responding the most basic of all youkai instincts, blood lust, he was mindless in his need to soothe himself.

The smell, the intoxicating scent of her red life free and let loose from its captivity in veins, was ripe in Inuyasha's nose and he almost toppled onto the ground, so powerful was the sensation.

_I exist for you_, he promised the girl he was imagining was between his thighs. _You're the light, the only thing I can see…_His breath rasped in the silence of the clearing as his hand clenched. The feeling of her body being torn open ripped through him and his back bent as his orgasm took him. It was powerful and for a glorious moment, he blacked out. Recovering was gradual and still stunned from the strength of the orgasm, he glanced down at his penis.

It was stained red with Kagome's blood; the hand he had used for pleasuring himself had his love's blood all over it.

For a few moments, it was all he could see. Flaccid meat, covered in blood; it was his entire world, the symbol of everything that was wrong with him.

_Monster…._

Inuyasha could swear he felt tears in his eyes.

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A/N: Well, hope you liked it. I wanted to get Inuyasha's side out in all this emotional turmoil. Review and let me know what you think!


	5. Beginning of the End, Part I

A/N: I just found out I got nominated for something! Best Drama in the Inuyasha Fanfiction Guild! I'm shocked out of my mind! Dazed and thrilled! I'm up against some heavy hitters, Weezambu (for 'Possession', one of my _favorite _stories! I honestly think it deserves to win, damn it all...) and 'Scars'. Well, good luck to everyone and me especially!

My biggest thank you's go out to:

Amberlinat

ultra dork

someonetoprotect

for nominating me. I adore all three of you and am touched beyond words.

YOU'RE AMAZING!

BTB, this chapter is crammed full of angst, horror and contains a few graphic images (non-sexual in nature) that may disturb some people.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Review and tell me what you think!

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Chapter Five: Where It All Went Wrong, part one:

------2 years earlier------

A horrible scream wrenched from Miroku's throat. It rang through the tiny village and the surrounding forest eerily, a screech more suited for a slowly slaughtered animal then the usually poised monk. There was silence for a moment and then the screams of agony started again.

Kagome gagged and hid her face in Inuyasha's kimono. Above her, Inuyasha's face was pale and green.

"When are they going to be done?" Kagome whispered desperately.

Inuyasha shrugged uncomfortably. "I have no idea," he answered truthfully. "We're just gonna have to wait it out."

As another shriek rent the air, Kagome whimpered. "It's not right, it wasn't suppose to be like this…"

"No shit," Inuyasha snorted derisively, anxiety making his voice curt.

"Should we go after Shippou?" Kagome asked hesitantly after another moment had passed.

"He's just using his instincts. Tiny youkai run when frightened. If we try to catch him now, he'll freak out and throw fox fire or a toy snake on top of us," Inuyasha replied.

"We should go comfort him," Kagome insisted.

Inuyasha shook his head firmly. "The kit's just scared from all that screaming and is doing what comes naturally to him- he's hiding now from the scary thing."

Noticing Kagome biting her lips again, he rolled his eyes. "He'll be fine," Inuyasha assured her for the last time.

Kagome sighed but nodded. Trusting him to know best, she concentrated on not crying as Miroku's hand was cauterized.

Sango rushed out of the hut where Kaede was working and began to vomit, retching from the smell of burning flesh and the intensity of Miroku's screams.

Inuyasha held Kagome back from going to her friend. "She doesn't want you to go," he reminded her softly.

Kagome nodded miserably. After the second time Sango had run out to purge her system, Kagome had run over to comfort only to be rebuffed. The taija had firmly told Kagome to stay away from the hut, the monk inside and Sango herself.

"I don't want your help. I have to handle this on my own," the magenta eyed demon slayer had said quietly. "If I'm not strong enough for this, can I be as strong as I need to be later?"

There was nothing to say to that and Kagome had slunk back into Inuyasha's arms, wincing in sympathy for her friend and anxiously waiting for the end to come.

"I should have seen it coming," Inuyasha whispered into her hair, jolting Kagome out of her morose thoughts.

"We all should have seen it coming," Kagome amended. "We knew what a creep Naraku was and how sneaky the guy could be." Sighing again, she smoothed her cheek on a rough fire rat wool clad shoulder. "We were being deliberately stupid, not wanting to admit that there could be a catch."  
Inuyasha nodded and patted Kagome awkwardly on the back.

Miroku screamed again.

----Several Hours Earlier-----

It was one of hundreds of similar meadows. There were flowers, mud, trees, streams and bugs, all existing in one small area and no more beautiful then any other clearing in Japan. Lovely and quiet, it was more the place for a lover's tryst then a grisly battle.

Thousands of corpses littered the ground, demons of all shapes and sizes destroyed and broken apart. In a circle the remaining combatants watched in horror as one of their own betrayed them to the horrific monster in the center.

"Kikyou don't!" Inuyasha yelled desperately.

Not sparing her former love a glance of even pity, Kikyou tossed the completed Shikon no Tama into Naraku's eager hands.

Gasping for breath, Kagome shot Kikyou a disbelieving look, the stoic priestess having eyes only for the gloating devil in ape skin. Naraku raised his hand and caressed Kikyou's cheek with gentle fingers.

_She, she gave Naraku the completed jewel!_ Kagome thought in horror. _This whole time, after all of our hard work, she was in league with Naraku! _

Inuyasha was motionless, held frozen in place by both Kikyou's incantation and actions. "Kikyou, what have you done?" the hanyou asked in a whisper.

"I did exactly what needed to be done," the resurrected priestess answered calmly.

Naraku was arching his back as if he was experiencing a great pleasure as the Shikon No Tama slowly turned a disgusting black in response to his overwhelming aura of cruelty, malice and spite. A low whine escaped his throat and the great youkai rubbed his hands over his chest as the jewel slowly sank into his body. An unnatural wind started to blow in the clearing.

"Kikyou why would you do that?" Kagome shouted angrily. "He has it and now we have no way to stop him!" _How could you hurt Inuyasha like that?_

"Keep quiet and do not presume to understand my actions," Kikyou said, a slight fury in her voice.

Miroku glared but could not struggle up; the seimyoushu's poison was potent and he had taken in much of it through his kazzana. Sango refused to leave him, protective as only a woman in love could be. Clutching Miroku's good hand, Sango whispered prayers and desperately searched for her brother among the minions in Naraku's army.

Hiding high above them in a tree, Shippou was weeping silently as Naraku's violent aura expanded and grew stronger.

The wind was picking up and whipped around the small group. Surrounded by the dead, facing Naraku as all his ambition were fulfilled, the small group of friends felt hope die.

The wind was screaming now and centered around the evil hanyou, pushing at his clothes and hair. Naraku opened his eyes and grinned maliciously at the frightened people surrounding him.

"When this is finished, when I have transcended, I will enjoy consuming your flesh," Naraku hissed gleefully. "You should run now."

"We'll beat you whether or not you have the Shikon no Tama!" Inuyasha shouted, belligerent as usual.

"Silence Inuyasha, you stupid fool!" snapped Kikyou, turning dead eyes onto her old love.

Her shock shattered by Kikyou's harsh words, Kagome ran over to Inuyasha, falling to his side.

Slowly Naraku's eyes bled red and his nails elongated into claws. Growing taller and bulkier, the half demon slowly transformed into a full youkai of awesome power and danger.

Looking him in face, she smiled gently. "If we're going to die, I want to die near you," Kagome confessed quietly.

Inuyasha smiled grudgingly and shook his head slowly. "You have the weirdest person I know," he mocked but placed his arm around Kagome's shoulders. As he laid his head on top of hers Kagome knew that her sentiment was reciprocated and she smiled, moving her hand into his.

_If we die, I've had this,_ she thought at an odd sort of peace with herself. _It's not enough but I'll take it. I'll take whatever I can get._

"Kagome…?" Inuyasha said, breaking into her reverie. Looking up at him, Kagome turned to look at what had so obviously captivated the hanyou's attention.

At first she was unsure about what she was seeing.

Perhaps it was the sun setting or the angle Naraku's body had taken but Kagome could swear that something was…_off_. A light began to grow underneath Naraku's skin and pulsated erratically. His aura was straining and changed into a myriad of wrong colors.

Nearby, Kikyou smiled maliciously.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome asked quietly, desperately. The white haired hanyou nodded slowly and with growing hope. Sango and Miroku watched from the sidelines, captivated and alarmed.

Obscenities streaming from his mouth, Naraku in vain tried to control himself, unsure about what was happening but knowing that is was certainly not what he had wanted.

"Vile dead bitch! What did you do?" he snarled impotently at Kikyou.

"Exactly what you deserved," the reconstructed priestess answered, vindication in her voice. Naraku growled and clutched at himself as his skin swelled and turned transparent. The soft tissue that had contained the vindictive demons that Naraku had used to create himself expanded painfully. The youkai he had punished into compliance moved restfully and hungrily underneath the membrane of his body. As the completed Shikon No Tama was absorbed into Naraku's flesh, the cruel black eyes of the most dangerous youkai in existence widened in fear.

A wordless scream of pure rage escaped Naraku as a demon exploded from his body clawing its way to freedom. It was the beginning of a flood.

Beating at himself with his own tentacles, Naraku tried to stem the flow, to stop the carnage and the self-mutilation. The hundreds of demons he had tricked so long ago into joining into him were taking their revenge. Coming out of every opening in his body, Naraku was being consumed by the bits of himself. Out of his nose, penis, wounds, ears, eyes, ass hole, mouth, ears the minor demons came. They ripped into him, dying as they did and uncaring, wanting only vengeance for years of pain and subjugation.

A snake demon took his left arm, a mass of eyes bit off the stalks of tentacles, a centipede demon ate from Naraku's stomach. Combining themselves with the power of the Shikon no Tama, the thousands of demons overpowered Naraku.

As each left, Naraku diminished a little in power. As the demons escaped, he became more Onigumo and less Naraku. With blood and gore seeping from his broken frame, Naraku slowly and excruciatingly began to die.

"Why? HOW?" wheezed Naraku as what was left of him fell to the ground.

Kikyo walked over to what soon would be Naraku's corpse and kicked the helpless demon turning into a dying human. "I am how."

Naraku writhed on the grass, gasping as he grew shorter and his eyes faded from furious black to mere dark brown. His hair became duller and his skin coarser as his humanity returned. Once again Onigumo, the man who had exchanged his humanity for the chance to be loved, looked up at the woman he had sacrificed his soul for. What he saw above him was perhaps more painful then all the wounds he had ever taken.

_I remember_, he thought dully_, how she looked that first time I saw her. I was in so much pain and yet my heart stopped from how beautiful she was. She was reserved but her hands were so gentle. I had never felt such gentleness and have never felt such kindness since. _Onigumo held Kikyo's eyes and felt human pain at how her resurrection had altered her. Yet the thought crossed his increasingly groggy mind that perhaps she hadn't changed at all…perhaps she had always been this way and he had just not seen it.

Kikyo was toying with a piece of his hair and it hurt Onigumo in a helpless and wholly emotional fashion that gesture should have been loving and wasn't. It should have been loving but the emotion simply was not there. _She never loved me…_ It shouldn't have hurt but it did. _After all this time, it still hurts…_

"You were not worth damning my soul," he whispered softly. "I sold myself to demons and you were an unworthy prize." _Does she know how much I love her?_ He thought absently, with a calm only the soon dead feel.

Kikyo smirked down at him. "You are wrong Onigumo. I was worth it. Your soul was simply not enough to be a proper exchange for my love."

Onigumo panted for breath and knew his death was only moments away. It was a comfort.

There was a small smile on Kikyo's face and it was a cruel smile, full of rage and bitterness. "You underestimate me," Kikyo said softly and viciously. "You did the entire time since I was resurrected and you do so now. You seem to imagine that you deserve a lingering death, time to repent to the gods." Raising an arm, she plunged her hand into Onigumo's stomach. "You have ruthlessly killed many. Know their pain."

Onigumo screamed, a high pitched whine of pain that slowly dwindled away. Kikyo pulled her hand from Naraku's stomach with a wet sound and in her bloody hand, she held the Shikon no Tama.

"Not possible," whispered Inuyasha in shock as Onigumo's corpse settled onto the ground with a last groan. "No…"

"He's dead," Sango whispered, stunned and dazed. "Naraku's actually dead."

_She killed him. Kikyo killed Naraku_, Kagome thought in confusion. But he was human then. He reverted to Onigumo at the end. _How could she kill any human so cavalierly? _

Ignored by everyone, Miroku tried to pull his courage together enough to pull off the hated glove on his right hand.

Inuyasha and the others stared in a stupor as Kikyo cleaned the jewel of Onigumo's insides and threw it onto the ground next to Kagome. "Cleanse it," the dead priestess commanded.

Numbly, Kagome took a hold of the jewel. As her hand closed around it, the pulsating aura of evil that had consumed the jewel died away leaving only the pale pink of the healthy jewel behind.

With a nod, Kikyo stalked away, her business concluded.

"Kikyo, where are you going?" Inuyasha shouted, feeling at a loss with everything. _What the hell is going on? _he wondered wildly. Everything was happening so quickly, his head was spinning. The agonizing decision of whether or not to go with Kikyo to hell had been ripping Inuyasha apart inside, occupying his thoughts and ruining his nights. Now, when the dreaded moment was at hand, Kikyo was leaving! Just as she should have been grabbing him and pulling him into hell with her, she was leaving without a backward glance! Inuyasha growled and clenched his fists. _What the fuck is going on!_

"Where are you going?" he called out again, wanting to pull out his hair or hers.

"Away," Kikyou answered blandly. Tilting her head toward him, she walked back to Inuyasha, the epitome of grace and elegance. "Are you waiting for me to cruelly tear you from this plane of existence?" she asked quietly.

Inuyasha dumbly nodded, words not coming from his throat as Kikyou smiled mockingly. "After seeing you deal with this Naraku crisis, I have decided that you don't even deserve to go to hell with me," Kikyou said in the cruelest of gentle tones.

Inuyasha jerked as if slapped. His heart was constricting and his breath wasn't coming. No wound had ever hurt quite this bad…

Kagome let out a barely audible gasp, a hand fisted over her heart.

"I have decided to not go to hell," Kikyou said calmly. "Being alive is a drug I refuse to give up. Besides," Kikyou shrugged. "Spending all of eternal damnation with you would be tedious," she said honestly.

Inuyasha wanted to gag and his eyes were wide and disbelieving.

"You exist on the souls of dead women!" Kagome shouted furiously. "You don't have a choice about whether or not you want to stay alive!"

Kikyou laughed out loud. It was a jarring sound, causing everyone alive to jump. "Who will stop me? You?" she said, pointing to Kagome. "You are not nearly my equal in training. The half breed who is so attached to my memory he was looking forward to dying with me? He will harm me now? Unlikely," Kikyo scoffed.

Inuyasha felt his face pale and flush at once. _She called me a half breed…Kikyo called me a half breed…_

"Shut up!" Kagome yelled, hands clenched. Glancing at Inuyasha, she wanted to rip Kikyou open for putting that shell shocked and hurt expression in his eyes.

"The slayer is of no consequence to someone of my power. The only one who could affect me is the monk," Kikyo mused out loud. "But he too is of no matter. He is going to have his hands full soon. Or should I say hand?"

"What?" Kagome asked confused. Inuyasha remained focused on Kikyo's placid expression, unable or unwilling to understand.

"_Help! Someone help him!_"

Inuyasha and Kagome whirled around, shaken by the desperation in Sango's voice.

"Sango, what's the matter?" Kagome called out as she ran to her friend's side, Shippou joining her. As she reached the slayer and the monk, she looked down and the first bout of nausea rose up her throat.

_Miroku's hand was dissolving_.

Like wax melting from a candle, in trickles and chunks his flesh was dripping onto the grass. The very bones, veins, ligaments and tendons were transformed into almost liquid solids and they slid off his right wrist with a sickening, slithering sound.

Shippou gasped in horror and took off at his fastest run, yelling for Kaede.

"We were just sitting here, not doing anything and then he just gasped and grabbed his right hand and it just started melting off and I don't know what to do, I don't know I don't know I don't know!" Sango sobbed, clutching Miroku's robes as he screamed from the pain and his body convulsed.

A chunk of Miroku's right hand fell to the ground and Kagome backed away, her body shaking in reaction. Finally, her mouth let out what her mind was shouting. _"INUYASHA!" _Kagome shrieked, falling onto the ground and scurrying backward desperately. _I don't know how to handle this, I can't do this!_ Kagome looked frantically at the hanyou who was frozen at the sight of the true consequence of breaking Naraku's curse. "Inuyasha, do something!" Kagome pleaded, unable to go closer.

Miroku's screams were getting louder and louder and Sango was truly breaking down, adding her cries to the general cacophony. Inuyasha looked from frantic face to frantic face, unsure of what anyone was expecting him to do but wishing dreadfully that he could do what their eyes were asking him. _I don't deal with stuff like this! This isn't what I do! This is for people like Kaede, Kagome or…_

Inuyasha whirled around, aware as he had never been that Kikyo was close by.

"Kikyo! Come help him!" Inuyasha shouted across the field, sure that Kikyo would come at once. _Once a healer, always a healer._

It was another shock to his system as Kikyo smirked and waved a graceful hand in goodbye.

_She's leaving…!_ He realized in shock. Behind him Miroku was clutching the remains of his right hand as his blood poured from the unnatural wound, whimpering and shivering.

Snarling, Inuyasha leapt and blocked Kikyo's way. "You are helping him!" he threatened, legs braced for an argument.

"Naraku's curse was always an obvious one. I'm surprised your little group of friends never figured it out," Kikyo observed.

"Shut up!" Inuyasha snarled_. I don't understand… _"Why won't you help him? He's never done anything to you!" Inuyasha barely recognized his own voice. It was cracking and filled with pain.

Kikyou stared up at his tortured face and Inuyasha could swear that there was pain in her dead eyes. "I will not help him," Kikyo replied softly. "My powers would do nothing here. There is nothing that my medicines can do for this type of injury."

Inuyasha opened his mouth to argue, yell, do something to change her mind but couldn't get out a word as Kikyo looked at him sternly. "His life is in danger and time is of the essence but I will tell you this. You will need to burn the wound closed," Kikyo said firmly.

"But Kikyo, you-!"

"He doesn't have time for you and I to argue," Kikyo interrupted him mid rant. "We have nothing more to say. You and your group of friends can save him." Kikyo looked at Inuyasha and smiled wryly. "I suppose you could say that you don't need me anymore." With a gentle look, she motioned him back to those who needed him most. "Go now."

Inuyasha gave the woman he had loved for so long a hard look. "You were always alive in my eyes, this entire time, I was willing to believe that your soul as it was still existed in your body."

Kikyou stared at the hanyou. "Is this supposed to hurt me? I am dead."

"Not to me. You were alive and lovely to me. Now, for this," Inuyasha hissed, "for your refusal to help a good man, you are dead to me and I will not mourn you. You are not worth it," he mocked cruelly.

Kikyou stared at her old love, not flinching. She knew her duty and would do it, irregardless of the pain it caused herself and others.

Inuyasha looked into Kikyou's eyes one last time and whispered, " I wish you had never been resurrected. I would have good memories then."

Kikyou took a step back from the vehemence in Inuyasha's voice. "Inuyasha, I-"

Ignoring her, Inuyasha rushed back to his friends, picking Miroku up and running to Kaede.

He never once looked back.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Kagome?"

The schoolgirl jerked and looked up at Inuyasha, blushing a bit as she realized how intently she had been staring at nothing.

"Sorry. I spaced out there for a minute." Remembering was painful but her mind kept drifting back to the final battle and what they could have done differently.

Inuyasha snorted. "More then a minute." Smoothing his hand over her hair, he sighed deeply. "I don't blame you. I wish I could concentrate on nothing right now."

The silence suddenly penetrated Kagome's mind and she pulled away from Inuyasha's arms, eyes locked on the little hut.

"I have no idea. The screaming just tapered off…" Inuyasha said in reply to her unspoken question.

Kagome looked at him fearfully, not daring to ask.

Inuyasha shook his head quickly. "No no, he's alive. I would have smelled it if he had died," he said bluntly. "I'm just can't make myself go to see what's happening…just in case, you know?"

Kagome nodded wearily. "I know."

The two sat next to each other, gathering comfort from the plain feel of another human being.

"I still can't believe how many times they had to burn it," Kagome said with a shudder, unable to take the unnerving and total silence. "It's so like Naraku to have his curse end like that. Miroku's kazaana is gone but so is his hand."

"To hell with that," Inuyasha said bitingly. "The fact that the stump won't heal is what really shows Naraku was involved in this." His hand fisted impotently. "Making Sango and Kaede burn him over and over to try to get the wound closed…I almost wish Naraku wasn't dead because then I could kill him for this."

"Me too," Kagome sighed. "He was such a violent jerk and I honestly think that-"

Kaede walked slowly out of the hut, grabbing Inuyasha and Kagome's attention. Rushing forward, they stopped in front of the old priestess. She seemed to stoop lower and her hands were shaking. Her white shirt was almost colored brown from dried blood and her usually bright pants were covered smoke stains and burn marks. Her normally neat hairstyle was mused and wisps of gray hair framed a face that seemed older then it had that morning when they had rushed into battle.

_Her eyes are sadder_, Inuyasha noticed absently.

"As long as a fever doesn't set it, he'll make it," Kaede announced to the worried friends. "He's asleep now."

"Thank god…oh, thank you god," whispered Kagome as Inuyasha sagged in relief, the release almost euphoric for both of them.

"Sango just about dropped where she was standing the minute she saw him drift off. They're together in the hut now and I don't want either bothered. It was a horrible experience for both of them," Kaede said with a sad shake of her head. She was sure that the images of Sango crying along with Miroku as the monk's flesh was cauterized would be revisiting her in a nightmare some night in the future.

"A horrible experience for everyone involved, Kaede," Kagome said gently. _Poor old woman_, the school girl thought with sympathy. _She looks on Miroku and Sango as her children and to see them in so much pain must be so upsetting for her…_

Looking at Kaede's obvious exhaustion, Inuyasha suddenly patted the old woman on the shoulder. "You did real good, Kaded-baba," he said softly. "We'll watch the two lovebirds while you go rest."

Kaede and Kagome stared at him in shock.

"Lovebirds?" Kagome said, unable to stop the smile from coming. It felt good to smile after such a long time of fear and anxiety.

"Why, uh, thank you Inuyasha," Kaede said in surprise. "These old bones do need to lie down…"

Shuffling off, Kaede looked at Inuyasha over her shoulder. _Something more then this tragedy with Miroku happened after Naraku died to make Inuyasha act thus_, the wise woman realized. _What could make Inuyasha so unlike himself?_ Kaede pondered this thought as she slid onto her futon, turning the question over in her mind. _An emotional upheaval of some sort, I'm sure of it. _There was only one person who could affect Inuyasha like this but the hanyou had clearly said that Kikyo had died in the battle against Naraku….

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A/N: Well, I warned you- angst out of the wazoo. Hope you all enjoyed it! Please Review and let me know what you think!


	6. Beginning of the End, Part II

A/N: Just thanking everyone for reviewing! I really appreciate it!

I warn you now that it tops last chapters angst factor and may in fact be too much angst (:gasp: no such thing!) but there is a reason for it! Everything happens really quickly but it all serves a purpose.

I hope you all enjoy! Read and review!

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Chapter Six: Beginning of the End, Part II:

Kagome tried not to stare. She truly did but it was hard not to gape at Miroku's stump. It was an ugly red eyesore, a pulsating mass of almost healed flesh, angry and painful. She noticed Miroku's unnatural pallor, his clenched teeth as heat and cold throbbed up his arm. Sango resembled him, the bags under her eyes were too dark, too heavy and standing out like a bruise on her overly pale skin.

About to ladle stew into a fifth bowl, Kagome stopped suddenly. "Shippou!" she hissed quietly. "Get that paw away from your nose right now!"

"But Kagome," whined the kitsune. "It smells terrible!"

Miroku clenched his fist but managed to not say anything.

"I said to get that paw off and I meant it!" Kagome said fiercely.

Shippou sulked but removed the offending clawed hand. About to eat his supper, the kitsune looked at Miroku again. _He's not eating, _he noticed worriedly._ Only one type of person doesn't eat…_

"Miroku, you aren't eating. Are you dying?" Shippou asked anxiously.

"No such luck," Miroku muttered.

Leaning forward, Shippou tried to sniff Miroku's stump. Ignoring the aghast expressions on everyone's faces, the little youkai informed Miroku that his arm was rotting.

All eyes turned to the monk, hoping they would see some of the old humor in his eyes.

Miroku gave Shippou a baleful glare. "Is it now?" he drawled softly. "How kind of you to point it out. Did your mother or father ever tell you how smart you are?"

Shippou looked confused. "No."

"There's a reason for that," sniped Miroku cruelly. "Now sit down and shut up."

"Wha…?" Shippou murmured confused and terribly hurt. Lower lip quivering, Shippou jumped up. "You're mean! I don't like you anymore! You've been mean ever since you woke up! I hate you! I liked you more when you had the kazanaa!"

With that, the kitsune ran out of the hut and into the woods, his whimpered tears echoing behind him.

"Miroku, that was a shitty thing to do," Inuyasha said with a growl. "He's just a kid."

"Like you're any better," came the tart reply. Snarling, Inuyasha rose onto the balls of his feet, ready to knock some decency back into Miroku quite literally.

"Inuyasha! Stop that!" Sango ordered. "You can't yell at Miroku. He's injured." Inuyasha rolled his eyes but plopped back down when he caught Kagome mouthing a dreaded word.

"I wish you hadn't done that to Shippou," Kagome commented quietly to the former monk sitting near her.

Miroku locked hard eyes with Kagome, daring her to make an issue of it. She wasn't brave enough or was simply too aware of his injury. Looking away, she set aside the Shippou issue and sat down to eat her meal.

For a few moments, there was nothing but the sound of slurped liquid, gulps and teeth chewing meat.

Miroku unthinkingly reached out to eat rice with his right arm and knocked a bowl over. Stew soaked the ground and an uncharacteristic rage gripped him.

"_Damn it_…," the monk hissed, trying to clean with a clumsy left hand. He almost unbalanced as his weight shifted uncomfortably and landed with a grunt on his remaining palm. His sleeve landed in the stew and the hot liquid singed his hand, making him pull back. His shoulder bumped into an anxious Sango's torso. With a slight gasp, she toppled backward, landing on her backside with a thump.

"Stop hovering!" Miroku shouted, his cheeks turning red with impotent rage as he tried to clean his hand and sleeve with nothing more then his desperate will and a stump. He wouldn't look the tearing Sango in the eyes as he muttered viciously under his breath.

"I was just trying to help," the demon slayer said, the effort it took her to not break down apparent in her strained voice.

"Well don't!" Miroku snapped. "I've been awake for a couple of weeks now Sango and I haven't keeled over dead yet. Stop bothering me," Miroku said furiously. The monk glared down at his pungently ruined sleeve and tried to calm down. Taking a breath, he took a cloth to clean himself with but realized that he needed another hand to do anything with the cloth. Cursing and enraged at fate, Miroku flung the cloth into a corner with all his strength.

"Here, let me get that," Sango suggested picking up the cotton. She so wanted to lighten his burden in some way, she was trying so hard to be of some use.

"Don't touch me!" Miroku shouted, jerking away from the taijya's gentle handling. "I don't want your help!"

"But-"

"Fuck off Sango! Back _the fuck_ off!"

Sango looked at him in shock. "You, you….I…!" She said, struggling to get her words around her anger and hurt. Not saying another word, she threw the cloth she had wiped up the stew from the tatami mat into Miroku's face turned and stormed out of the hut.

Miroku watched her go, his pretty indigo eyes turning almost black.

"Sure," he shouted derisively. "Throw something at the _god damned cripple_! Why not? He can't catch it anyways!" Miroku was screaming as loudly as he could at the empty doorway but Sango didn't reply. As the seconds passed, guilt took hold of Miroku yet again and his one fist clenched. Feeling his hand move, he glanced down and was once again reminded forcibly of why he was furious. "I hate this," he whispered venomously. "I hate it."

Miroku stood shakily and stumbled out of the hut, glaring at Kagome when she reached to help him.

The hut was empty of all occupants besides a hanyou and a miko-in-training.

Kaogme wanted desperately to do something, anything to help the two as all their dreams were thrown to the wayside. There was nothing she could do; she knew this and it bothered her. She had been the surrogate mother-figure of the little traveling group and seeing the two hurting so badly but obviously uninterested in her mothering was painful.

Kagome snuck a look at Inuyasha and he appeared as calm as usual.

Kagome wasn't fooled; his façade cracked in several key places. The tension in his fingers that grasped Tessuiga's sheath turned his knuckles white. His posture was too stiff and his breath was too controlled for nature.

"That's the third time he's blown up at her like this," Kagome commented sadly. "He never used to lose his temper…"

"Losing a limb can change a person," Inuyasha replied, knowing it was an obvious statement but one that Kagome needed to hear. _She knows it but subconsciously, she's still expecting the old Miroku_. Inuyasha shook his head but Kagome didn't notice, too busy with peering out the doorway and trying to see if Miroku had reached the hut he was staying in safely.

Inuyasha glared at Kagome's back. The two girls had been practically forced Miroku to sit and do nothing, feeding him, wiping his face, bathing him…Inuyasha shuddered. Losing a hand was a horrible thing but Kagome and Sango were slowly castrating the poor guy.

"Leave them alone," Inuyasha said quietly. "Sango's got to calm down."

"Calm down?" Kagome whirled around, aghast at Inuyasha's insensitivity. "Her fiancée almost bled to death! The fact that he's alive is a miracle!"

"Yeah but Sango's driving me nuts and I'm just watching her fuss!" Inuyasha said, annoyed at Kagome's density. "I mean, what's next? Trying to shit for him?"

"She just wants to help!" Kagome insisted loudly, a red flush staining her face at his crudity.

"Well she's not!" Inuyasha shot back. "It's obvious to everyone else except you two! Miroku is in pain-"

"We know that!"  
"You know it but you're not understanding it!" Inuyasha replied angrily, surging to his feet. "You think you know why he's pissed but you don't! You're treating him like half a man." The half demon tried to force Kagome to comprehend, stepping into and invading her personal space. "Sango is making him miserable, fluttering around, thinking he'll break at any minute. He may but only because Sango's driving him to suicide!"

"That is not true!" came the surprising burst from the doorway. Inuyasha and Kagome looked up in shock at the furious Sango. "I love him!" The enraged taijya yelled, tears coming down her cheeks. With a rough gesture, she brushed them away as she almost always did. "I want to be there for him, make sure that he knows I still love him!"

"You are smothering him," Inuyasha said firmly. "Enough. Let him breathe or just leave him alone or let him die."

"Inuyasha shut up," Kagome hissed, horrified as Sango jerked in horror.

"You bastard," Sango whispered, stomping into the hut. Lifting her hand, Sango threw years of training and fighting speak for her as she punched Inuyasha with her right fist. His head snapping back, Inuyasha stumbled a bit before regaining his balance.

The hut was silent as Inuyasha flexed his face and wiped a now bloody mouth. "Damn," the half demon finally said, a small smile on his face. "You got a kick-ass right hook."

Sango stared at her traveling companion. Her face slowly got redder and redder as her fists clenched tighter and tighter.

"Don't joke about this!" she yelled heaving for breath. "This is nothing to be okay with! Making jokes about Miroku's condition-"  
"I never said I'm okay with what happened," Inuyasha protested. "But I'm right! You can't keep hovering and waiting for him to collapse. Even if he was on his last legs-"

"_He's not dying!"_ Sango screamed, throwing a handy bowl at the hanyou she used to consider a friend. Kagome shrieked in surprise and fright but, with ease, Inuyasha batted the pottery to the side where it shattered.

"He might as well be. Then at least all this fussing would have a purpose," Inuyasha stoutly said, unaffected by Sango's temper. "As it is, suicide-"

" He's not committing suicide! He's not even thinking about it! I don't, I…I don't let!" Sango said wildly.

"I didn't mean that when I said that." Inuyasha sighed and rubbed a hand through white hair. "I just meant-"

"You can't stop me," came a quiet announcement. Sango and Kagome looked at the doorway to a pale and extremely irate former monk.

Inuyasha looked at the ground. He knew exactly when Miroku had stopped by the entrance of the hut, he had known the instant the monk had decided not to come in and he had known Miroku would hear every word of the yelling match. He knew all that just as he knew that when Kagome realized that he had allowed Miroku to hear, he would be sat to the seventh level of hell.

_Keh, I can climb out of hell. _

"If I want to commit suicide, I can damn well do it," Miroku said furiously.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sango said, just as angry. "You are not committing suicide!"

"Sango you don't understand," Miroku said glowering. "If I want to kill myself, then I'll kill myself. You have no say in the god damn matter."

Sango licked her lips and tried to calm down.

"Now, now everyone," Kagome said uneasily, stepping between the two, "Lets just calm down and-"

"Hey Inuyasha?" Miroku interrupted.

"Hmm?"

"Get her out of here."

Inuyasha nodded silently as Kagome gaped like a fish out of water and Sango glared. He grabbed Kagome's arm and hauled her out of the tension fraught hut.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome sputtered. "Let me go! We have to help Sango!"  
"No, we don't have to do anything," Inuyasha snarled. He turned and glared at Kagome. "Stop your meddling, stop interfering with them."

Kagome glared back and stamped her foot for good measure. "I am not interfering! I'm trying to help!"

Inuyasha straightened to his full intimidating height. "Don't. You make things worse."

Kagome gasped and looked at Inuyasha with tearing blue eyes. "I, I…I am helping…"  
"No you're not," Inuyasha repeated in a gentler tone. "This is Miroku's battle. He needs supporters, not helpers."

Kagome opened her mouth and slowly closed it, shaking her head.

"Survivors are supported. Cripples are helped. They get helped to piss, eat and move. Survivors walk on their own but with support," Inuyasha explained, praying Kagome was understanding.

Kagome's entire body seemed to sag underneath a weight. "But there must be something I can do," she whispered. "I have to help."

Inuyasha sighed and rubbed his head wearily. "Help by keeping your opinion to yourself," he muttered, not realizing Kagome had heard. Inuyasha winced as Kagome let out a small sound of deep hurt. _Damn it all. _Now _she starts listening to me when I talk…_

"Kagome, come on," Inuyasha said helplessly as the schoolgirl turned away sniffling.

Kagome miserably began to walk away from the rest of the village, turning to the woods.

Screams from the hut came to her distantly as her entire being centered on absorbing Inuyasha's cruel words without shattering. Inuyasha heard the shouts but ignored them. He had other things to consider then whatever was happening.

------Inside the Hut-------

Miroku looked at the horrified girl standing near him. Even now, after all that had happened and everything he knew was going to come, her mere presence filled him with longing and a physical ache. _Sango_, his mind whispered lovingly.

The woman who haunted him glared at Miroku, trying to summon up some emotion other then paralyzing fear.

"You will not commit suicide," Sango commanded, her voice more pleading then otherwise.

"Like I said," Miroku repeated tauntingly, "if I want to die, I'll do it and you can't stop me." Even as his words fell out of his mouth, Miroku wondered why he was hurting her like this. He would never kill himself. He had suffered enough under Naraku's curse that the very idea that he would willingly kill himself was ludicrous.

"Stop it," pleaded Sango finally. "I don't want you to…" she whispered to the monk she had loved for what seemed forever.

"You can't always get everything you want," Miroku said with a nonchalant shrug.

"Why are you doing this?" Sango cried out helplessly.

Miroku mutely held up his stump.

"I know but…" Sango trailed off.

"By the way, I never got around to telling you this but," Miroku cleared his throat. "Our engagement is over."

Sango stared at Miroku with disbelieving eyes. "What?" She shook her head, unable to grasp his words.

"You don't have to marry me now," Miroku said, not looking Sango in the eyes.

"I want to."

"Why? I'm a useless cripple," Miroku said reasonably.

"I told you, I want to marry you!" Sango said vehemently, unable to comprehend what was going on.

"And I told you that you can't always get what you want."

"Is this about my hovering?" Sango asked in a small voice. "I'll stop mothering you, I swear."

"It's not that. I just need to move on," Miroku explained.

Sango's entire body seemed to freeze as the implications of his statement echoed in his brain. "...You want to leave?"

The former monk said nothing for a few minutes, staring at the floor. He shifted on his feet, left to right and right to left, still unwilling to commit. _Once I say it, I'll have to do it_, he thought desperate and confused. _I'll have to go. Don't make me say it Sango. Just…wait for me to calm down…I can't think right now!_

Sango saw none of this uncertainty. The only thing she could see was that the man she loved was leaving. _My heart_, she thought feeling short of breath. _It can't take this…_

"Please…" she said softly. Reaching out she grasped Miroku's sleeve. "Please, please don't leave me."

Miroku involuntarily closed his eyes. The pain reflecting back at him was too much; he would be unable to resist her and only cause them both suffering and anger if he stayed.

"I don't want to go," he said wearily. "But I have no choice. This is something I have to do."

"That's bullshit!" Sango burst out. "You don't have to go!"

Miroku glared at her. "What the hell do you know?" he hissed, yanking away from her. "You can still function! What the hell am I supposed to do here Sango?" he asked her furiously. "I can't farm with one hand! I can't be a monk anymore. I don't want to be a monk anymore! The gods don't deserve my prayers!"

"Miroku!" Sango gasped as this unprecedented blasphemy.

"What the fuck did they ever do for me?" Miroku shouted, lancing a long-suffering wound. "Nothing! My grandfather died, my father died and I lost my hand to a demon! After all the years I was faithful and believed and prayed, I got nothing in return! I worshipped them and got shit in my face as a thank you!" Miroku turned and viciously ripped off the head of his Shakujou. Throwing the golden circle into a corner, he looked at a shocked Sango. "I hate them," he whispered brutally. "I hate the gods. I hate the fates. I hate this little village with its stupid people who want me to be what I was and can't be anymore. I hate them all. I just want to be left alone, damn it."

Sango stared at Miroku, her face mirroring the horror she felt inside. "You're serious. You hate the gods…"

Miroku merely looked at her with one sardonic eyebrow raised. "I don't know why that shocks you. After a trauma like having your own arm melt off, anyone would hate the gods."

"But not you," whispered Sango as she walked over to him slowly. A hand reached up to caress his cheek and as it slid over his face, Miroku closed his eyes and turned his head into her palm. _Sango_, he thought absently, pleasure at the little touch rushing through him. _So sweet, so incredibly naïve after everything you've been through…_

"You were always so faithful, so good to everyone around you. You must believe in the gods," Sango continued.

A plan occurred to Miroku, birthed from his depression and anxiety. It was devious, wrong in every way and the only way he could leave without Sango following him.

"I know a way you could convince me to stay," Miroku whispered, eyes still closed.

The hand stroking him paused. "How?"

Miroku took Sango's hand and unhurriedly lowered it over his neck and past his collarbone with a dirty smirk. Once she understood his intention, Sango tried to jerk away but Miroku held tight to her small hand. He moved her palm down the hard planes of his chest, slowly forced her to stroke his abdomen until those callused female fingers clasped his rapidly engorging arousal.

Sango's face was flaming. "Miroku!" she hissed, scared and horrified, "let me go!"

"If you can't handle this, how do you intend to handle the rest?" he murmured, forcing her fingers up and down his shaft.

"Let go…please let go," whimpered Sango, feeling her breath coming faster and something unfamiliar and frightening curling in her stomach.

"Sleep with me Sango…."

"What?" Sango stared into Miroku's passion filled eyes. "You, you can't be serious."

Miroku's dick twitched under her hand, causing Sango to squeak. He chuckled and leaned forward. "Oh, I'm quite serious," he whispered into her hair. "Sleep with me, let me into you, let me feel your heat and how wet you can become. Let me and I won't leave."

_He…he's serious? He can't be! My Miroku would never ask me to do that! He loves me, he knows how much I want to wait. But this Miroku looks so certain._ "If I don't…?" Sango asked slowly.

"Then I'm gone," Miroku replied seriously. He allowed Sango to snatch her hand away from his hungry groin. "I'll leave."

Sango stared at him, searching his face for a familiar grin and the twinkling eyes that let her know he was teasing her again. Nothing to denote levity was in his face and Sango felt crushed.

"How could you even suggest this?" she asked quietly, her hand resting on his chest.

Miroku smoothed her hair and struggled to understand himself. _I…I don't know why. I just know that I've wanted you for so long but never had enough to convince you to be with me..._Miroku thought sadly. _Now, I'll never know. I certainly have nothing to offer you now._

"Yes or no?" he asked finally, not answering her.

Sango looked away. _Keep him here and lose my pride or keep my honor and lose Miroku?_ She wondered anxiously. "Can I-?"

"Yes or no?" Miroku asked again, giving her no time to consider.

Swallowing, Sango waited a bit but finally nodded reluctantly. "All right," she said softly. "If you'll stay, I'll sleep with you."

A minute passed as the silence between the two got heavier and more tension filled.

"Never mind," Miroku said softly, scornfully.

A cold shudder swept through Sango's body. "I don't understand," Sango ground out, more confused then she could ever remember.

"You should have slapped me for that," Miroku answered, frustrated and unhappy. "If this had been before Naraku's curse ended, you would have knocked me unconscious. But now, now you won't even yell at me for saying something so horrible!"

"Of course I won't hit you! You've been injured!" she shouted, a terrible misgiving filling her mind. _He wouldn't do that to me, _she argued with herself._ Don't be silly, Miroku wouldn't do that!_ Yet the ugly suspicion wouldn't leave.

"I'm sick of being treated like I'm half dead," Miroku said seriously. "I'm leaving."

He attempted to push by Sango but was stopped by a hand on the back of his robes.

"Answer me this last question," Sango said in a false calm. "Was that question you asked me a test?"

"Yes," Miroku answered untroubled.

Rage gripped Sango tightly in its implacable fist. "So asking me to give up my values,  
my honor, everything my father tried to teach me was just a test to you?" she hissed.

Miroku rolled his eyes. "Don't make yourself the martyr here," he scoffed. "We both know you wouldn't have actually done it."

"Liar!" shouted Sango. "How dare you assume that it was nothing to me! What you suggested was everything to me, it was a damn symbol of what made me myself! How dare you test me like that!" She had thought it hurt when he told her that he would leave. Now she knew what a broken heart felt like. That he had disregarded everything that had formed her truly broke her. _Has he ever cared for me beyond the girl he couldn't get?_ she wondered wildly. She used to think so but now nothing was clear anymore.

Miroku backed away a step. "Sango, that's not how I meant it."

"I don't care! The audacity to do that- my god, you make me sick!" Sango spat out. "I was willing to give up my virginity, my chances of marriage and respectability for you! Only for you! And you throw it back in my face like it was nothing! Like I'm nothing!" Sango shouted, rage coursing through her. She welcomed it. Familiar and comforting, the anger was a salve on her pain and damaged feelings.

"Sango calm down," Miroku said worriedly. This fury was unexpected and there was a recklessness in Sango's eyes that was making the former monk uneasy. "You're becoming hysterical."

"_Shut up!"_ Sango yelled. Picking up a jar she hurled it at the former monk. "Go away from me! Go to hell for all I care!"

He paused for a moment. _Apparently all that begging of me to stay was just protestations. She's grabbing the first chance she can to get rid of me, _Miroku realized bitterly._ How unsurprising. No one ever wants me to stay. I thought she did but I was wrong. Wrong again. _

The chance to hurt her was in his hands, hurt her as she was killing him.

"I'm waiting," Sango said grimly, nostrils flared as if the very scent of his still charred arm stump was repugnant to her.

It was that ever so slightly wrinkled nose that decided him. In the back of his mind, Miroku knew he would regret this as he would regret so much of this day but the present was more important then future recriminations. "Just so you should know," Miroku said quietly, "I have asked Inuyasha and Kagome and there is no such thing as demon slayers in Kagome-sama's time."

He could see the whites of Sango's eyes as they widened and a small whine of denial escaped the taijya's self-control. "In fact," Miroku continued ruthlessly, "Kagome said that she was shocked to learn of the demon slayers as not a single mention of them is in any of the ancient legends or histories." Walking past the destroyed Sango, Miroku shot one last sally. "It seems your culture was completely forgotten by the world."

"Not true…" Sango denied weakly. A sniff was the only indication of her inner devastation.

The horror of what he had done to the woman he loved shot through Miroku and the urge to gather her up, apologize and beg for forgiveness was strong. _What's wrong with me? _Miroku thought frantically. _Why am I doing this? I am not this cruel! _"Sango, that was unforgivable and-"

Miroku was silenced as Sango picked up the curtain of the doorway.

"You're a liar. A lying and worthless homeless monk with nothing to offer anyone except instructions on how to be hateful and deceitful. I won't take your word as the truth."

Miroku stared at Sango for a moment before stalking past her. "I'm leaving now. I don't know when I'll be back."

Sango didn't flinch. "Go. I may not be here when you return."

Miroku's lips pursed but he moved out of the doorway, swallowing words of love, forgiveness and self reproach.

There was nothing to be said and there was nothing to be done.

_So we end. I knew it was too good to last, _Miroku thought, determined not to look back.Perhaps if he had looked back, he would have seen Sango collapsed on the floor, clutching the doorway as her last lifeline, biting her lip so hard it bled. The tears came down but not a sound escaped her.

_I am a demon slayer! I have survived the deaths of my entire clan, the betrayal of my younger brother, broken bones and bruises. I swear it, one man will not destroy me, _Sango vowed to herself, ignoring her grief.

She refused to call him back, no matter how her heart was breaking.

He refused to turn around, not matter how his heart was breaking.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Kagome, I'm sorry but I'm right!" Inuyasha protested again as the pair walked back to Kaede's village. The walk had been short and filled with sharp words.

"Hmph!" Kagome sniffed and turned her nose into the air.

"You look a lot like Sesshomaru when you do that and it's pissin' me off!" snapped Inuyasha..

"Yeah, well you piss me off with your highhanded attitude!" Kagome snapped back.

Inuyasha snorted at this idiocy. _My attitude is not high handed. _Sesshomaru's_ is high handed! I'm just putting you in your place!_ Wisely, Inuyasha decided that a simple "keh!" said all this for him.

About to further reprimand Kagome, Inuyasha stopped as Miroku exited the hut.

Kagome stumbled to a stop next to him, her attention also drawn to the oddly pensive man on the hill. Warily looking at each other, Kagome and Inuyasha jogged toward their friend. Miroku saw them and waved a lazy arm. He slowly walked to meet them.

"Hey," Inuyasha called out. "She calm down?"

Miroku for an instant looked terribly frightened. The expression was on his face for only a moment before a more usual composed look settled onto his features. "No," he answered succinctly. "She hasn't calmed down." He walked into over to the hut where he sometimes slept and began gathering his things.

"How mad _is_ she?" Kagome asked after it became clear Miroku was offering no further information.

"I'm leaving," Miroku announced, completely ignoring Kagome's careful question.

Inuyasha's eyes flew open. _What? _He mentally grappled for balance. _Miroku can't leave!_

Kagome grabbed Miroku's arm, shocked and frightened. "Why?" she asked. "Are you so angry at us?"

Miroku yanked his arm away. "Actually," he said tightly, "it has nothing to do with any of you. In fact," he ground out as he stuffed dried herbs, foodstuff and a filled water carrier into a pouch, "not everything I do revolves around you three. Believe it or not but before I met all of you, I was doing fine on my own!" Miroku jerked roughly on the sealing ties of his pouch and slung it over his shoulder.

"But, but what about Sango-chan?" Kagome said nervously. "Have you told her?"

"She knows. She doesn't care," Miroku replied simply as he picked up the remains of his Shakujou.

Kagome gaped. "That's not true!" she protested loudly. "She has to care!"

"No," Miroku said as if speaking to a child, "she doesn't."

"This is ridiculous," Kagome said vehemently. "Everyone knows she loves you and you love her."

"Well," Miroku replied sardonically, "everyone is wrong."

"This _is_ bullshit," Inuyasha stated arms crossed and an obstinate look on his face. "You can't just pick up and leave the group."

"Why not?" Miroku snorted sounding terribly amused. "There is no more reason for our group to exist. Naraku is defeated, my wind tunnel is gone. I don't really care what you do about the Shikon no Tama." Miroku slung his rucksack over a shoulder. "You tell me Inuyasha why I can't leave the group."

The half demon studied Miroku intently for a few minutes. No one spoke and not a sound was made as Inuyasha made his leisurely perusal of Miroku. He noticed Miroku's clenched hand, the lines between his eyes and the tightness of his mouth. Inuyasha saw the stiffness of his shoulders and the too bright look in indigo eyes. _He doesn't want to leave, _the hanyou concluded._ But then why is he…? _

A light shining from Sango's hut on the hill went out abruptly.

_Ah…that's the problem. Poor guy, _Inuyasha commiserated as everything became clear. He understood what internal conflict inside Miroku was prompting this leave-taking as he had felt it himself. Feeling his heart twist inside him, Inuyasha acknowledged privately that his friend the priest was going to leave and it was unlikely they would ever meet again.

"You're right. There's nothing holding you back here," Inuyasha agreed. _Sometimes the only way to survive is to leave. Being intact and miserable is better then with someone and torn apart. _"But it's late. Why don't you stay one last night?" Inuyasha said reasonably.

Beside him, Kagome squawked in outrage. _Is he out of his mind? _the modern girl thought in horror._ He's just going to let Miroku leave?_

"No," Miroku replied softly. Against his will, he glanced at the lightless hut containing the woman who had rebuffed him. Seeing those dark windows was like getting kicked in the stomach.

"Shippou isn't even back yet," Inuyasha admonished. "You're gonna leave without saying goodbye to the runt?"  
"Guess so," Miroku admitted. He shot Inuyasha a wry look. "Since when did you become so sneaky, trying to get me to stay one extra night when you know I'll never leave if not now?"

Inuyasha shrugged, oddly pleased that someone had noticed how clever he had tried to be. "No idea."

Miroku settled a rainhat on his back and sighed deeply. He gazed at the two people who had come to be his best friends and released a gentle smile to counteract their worried expressions. "I'll be fine," he soothed. "Maybe one day we'll even see each other again."

Kagome started crying, unable to be brave at this sudden dismantling of her world. "I don't understand," she choked out. "Why are you going?"

Miroku put a hand on her should comfortingly. "Because I have to," he answered plainly. "I need to figure out who I am without my kazaana. If I stay here, I really might kill myself… I know I have things left to do, a purpose out there, somewhere away from here. I have to find that purpose."

"You're still Miroku," Kagome whispered.

Miroku merely smiled a fake platitude and began walking down a dark road. It was odd to see him going and not hear the bells of his staff ring.

Inuyasha placed a hand on Kagome's shoulder and squeezed. Unbidden, she launched herself into his arms and, uncomfortable as usual with physical intimacy, Inuyasha could only awkwardly pat her on the back. Undeterred, Kagome cried for herself, for all her decaying friendships but most of all for stupid, foolish Sango who allowed happiness to walk away.

Miroku never looked back, disappearing from sight silently.

--------------------------------------

Kagome blearily rubbed at her eyes. _Crying yourself to sleep, though wonderfully dramatic, was not the smartest thing you could have done_, she admonished herself. Her eyes felt like they had been stripped of all moisture and her eyelids were sandpaper. "Ugh," she mumbled. _Where the heck is the water in here?_ Not feeling comfortable with sleeping next to an obviously furious Sango, Kagome had elected to sleep in an abandoned hut and had no idea where the water container she had filled was.

_Never say that the high death rate nowadays never served a purpose,_ she joked morbidly to herself. Blaming the early hour for the tasteless joke, Kagome located the recalcitrant lost water pitcher and took a deep drink. Sighing with satisfaction, she mentally prepared herself to tell Sango what Miroku had done. _Poor girl, _Kagome sympathized, _she's going to be so upset._

Emerging from the hut, she spied an odd sight. Inuyasha was tapping his foot and gesturing wildly at a silent Sango. "Hey, good morning," Kagome called out calmly.

"Shut up!" snapped Sango.

There was only one reason why Sango would be so furious so early in the morning._ What did you do?_ Kagome's eyes questioned as she looked at Inuyasha. The annoyed hanyou scowled and stormed away from the demon slayer.

"I've been arguing with her for the last half hour!" Inuyasha complained loudly. "I can't take it anymore!"

"I never asked for your opinion so if you had shut up, we wouldn't have been arguing in the first place," Sango retorted.

"If you weren't making stupid decisions, I wouldn't interfere!"

"It's a good decision and I'm sick of hearing this garbage from you," Sango said grimly. "Get out of the way."

"Make me!" jeered Inuyasha, believing in his own omnipotence.

With nary an apparent qualm, Sango spun Hiraikotsu at her traveling companion. Dodging at the last moment, Inuyasha merely got clipped by the gigantic boomerang. From his sprawl on the ground, the hanyou gaped at Sango in disbelief.

"What the hell was that for?" he shouted, face pale at the very close call.

"I'm pissed because you're an idiot," spat Sango.

"Sango!" Kagome shouted, running to Inuyasha's side. "What's wrong with you!"

"She has her frickin' monthly bleeding!" Inuyasha roared, pushing himself off the ground. "It's got her in a pissy bitch mood!"

Kagome felt her face flame. "_Inuyasha SIT!"_ With a solid thump, the half demon was flattened to the ground.

"Oh spare me," drawled Sango coldly to her flabbergasted friend. "I don't need your type of help."

Kagome exchanged another questioning look with the squashed half demon, unaware of how their silent communication served to further upset Sango.

"Um, I don't mean to pry Sango-chan but…are you okay?" Kagome asked hesitantly.

Sango looked at the girl from the future and had to restrain herself from slapping her silly. "You let him go."

Kagome sighed._ Oh dear… _"We had to. We couldn't force him to stay here."

"You could have," Sango whispered insistently. "Inuyasha could have knocked him out, you could have talked some sense into him…he wouldn't have gone."

Inuyasha pulled his face from the ground and snarled up at the morose demon slayer, "He wanted to leave! Why don't you two get it? He wanted to go."

"You know, I just don't care," Sango said firmly, shaking off her depression and worry. "He's no longer my concern, not after that stunt he pulled last night."

"Sango, what did he do?" Kagome asked cautiously, exchanging a glance with Inuyasha.

Sango smiled brightly but knew from the worried expressions on Kagome's face that she had fooled no one. "He wanted to make a deal."

Knowing she would dislike the answer, Kagome asked anyway. "What sort of deal?"

With a calm façade, Sango explained what had happened in the time before Miroku left.

Shocked and horrified, Inuyasha and Kagome listened helplessly while Sango described Miroku groping and propositioning her.

"And then," Sango finished with a hollow laugh, "when I agreed, he turned me down and said I wasn't good enough."

Inuyasha cursed violently. This was unlike the Miroku who had pissed him off so many times. What he had done to Sango was dishonorable and completely out of character. _But then we've all been out of sorts since Naraku died, _Inuyasha realized grimly.

"Oh Sango," said Kagome, placing a hand on her friends shoulder. "I'm sure you misunderstood."

"I didn't," Sango replied harshly. "I've been thinking about this for a while and I know what I should do. With myself I mean." Sango looked away hesitatingly. "I don't know if it's because of last night but I don't think so."

"You're not making any sense," Inuyasha snapped, apprehension shortening his already brief grip on his temper. _Please don't let this be what I think it is._

"Sango? What are you saying?" Kagome asked, dread roiling in her stomach.

"I made a promise and I've put it off long enough. Kohaku is dead, everyone in my family is dead, my entire village is dead and it's all because of Naraku. I made a promise I would see him dead. Now that he is," Sango trailed off. Suddenly, her head shot up and she stared her friends bravely directly into their eyes. "I'm leaving."

"You too?" blurted Inuyasha thoughtlessly, aware only of his fury. "What the fuck?"

Sango glared wordlessly. Inuyasha glared back. _Too many people are leaving, _he thought apprehensively_. Why now?_

"You can't!" Kagome begged.

"I have to. I promised my family and I've delayed long enough. I must rebuild my village and keep the traditions as I learned them." Sango looked at her devastated friends closely. "Do you understand? Do you see? I can't abandon the dead like I've been doing."

"You're running away," Inuyasha accused. "You're just scared that if you stay here and Miroku returns, he'll think you waited for him and brave demon slayers wait for no one," Inuyasha finished with a sneer.

"Don't say his name," Sango commanded. "He's dead to me."

"If he was, you wouldn't be running like a coward with your tail between your legs," argued Inuyasha.

Sango straightened her shoulders and looked the half demon in his yellow eyes. "Don't piss me off," she threatened quietly. "I am the last of the demon slayers. I have killed full demons stronger and craftier then you. You would be no challenge for me."

Growling heatedly at this slur, Inuyasha fingered Tetsuiga.

"Inuyasha, stop it!" Kagome cried. "Not now!"

Reluctantly, Inuyasha stepped back. Sango smirked at him.

"Sango, can't you rebuild the village here?" Kagome interrupted their posturing.

"I could," the demon slayer answered honestly. "I don't want to."

"Why not?" asked Kagome desperately. "You were happy here! It's a nice place."

Sango looked at her friend with dead eyes. "When were you planning on telling me?"

Kagome sighed and shifted uncomfortably. "When you realized. I was just so-"

Inuyasha slapped a hand over Kagome's mouth, uncaring of the furious glare in the schoolgirl's eyes that promised unholy retribution. "She's not talking about Miroku," Inuyasha said urgently. "This is about what we were arguing about earlier."

Kagome eased away from the half demon, obviously confused. "Well what are you talking about, Sango?"

"About my legacy. About the demon slayers," Sango stated with clenched fists. "I'm talking about how we don't exist in your time. I'm talking about how we aren't even some stupid legend or tale. I'm talking about how the world forgot our sacrifices," Sango snarled as the injustice of it gained new depth in her mind.

Kagome took a step back. "How did you-? Who told you about-?" she stammered.

"You won't even deny it. I suppose that means it's true," Sango said quietly. "When were you going to tell me? After you finished laughing behind my back? All this time, you've encouraged me to follow my dream of rebuilding my village and the whole time all of you knew that nothing was going to come of it."

"It wasn't a conspiracy," Kagome said, grabbing Sango's hand. "No one was laughing."

Though she pulled away, Sango listened desperate to know that not everyone had betrayed her at once.

"Who was I to take away your dream?" Kagome asked quietly. "Who was I to say whether or not you would succeed? I couldn't determine your fate by telling you that according to my time, your sect never existed. Maybe my telling you that was what stopped the slayer from reemerging," Kagome said seriously. It was obvious she had given the matter consideration; her voice was too somber and her words too cohesive for these to be spontaneous thoughts.

"Who told you?" Inuyasha asked, fists clenched. "Sango who told you?" He was obviously furious and trying to contain himself. _After all the time we hid the knowledge from her, who would have said something?_

The demon slayer looked cynically amused. "Who do you think?" she replied with a humorless chuckle.

"That damn bastard," swore Inuyasha, fingering Tetsusaiga eagerly. Kagome winced. She hadn't thought Miroku capable of the cruelty he had shown this past day.

Sango sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging under a new burden. "It doesn't matter. I have a duty to perform."

"You won't reconsider?" Kagome asked.

Sango seemed to consider for a moment before shaking her head. "As far as I can see it, the dead are the only loyal people I know. They would have told me sooner and they would not have kept such news to themselves. I owe them my allegiance. Not you, not Inuyasha and certainly not that monk."

Kagome flinched.

"You tell me Kagome," challenged Sango in an unknowing parody of Miroku's earlier departure. "You tell me why I should stay."

Helplessly, Kagome shrugged. "Because we need you here. We'll miss you and we want your company. You'll only have the dead in your old village. You can't talk to the dead, you can't laugh with the dead, you can't love with the dead…"

Sango picked up her few belongings, packed and ready to go. "You don't understand. I have no wish to do any of those things with you either. I'm alone either way. Why not do something useful if I'm going to be on my own?"

Ignoring Kagome's sobs and Inuyasha's threats, Sango calmly packed up some essentials for traveling. Without uttering another word, Sango picked up Hiraikotsu and leapt up onto Kirara's back. Ignoring the protests of the demon cat, Sango began the long journey to her home village and the pointless task she had set herself to.

_I may be alone, I may be broken but I am not defeated,_ she swore to herself. _I will see the demon slayers resurrected. I will see them thrive. No one can stop me and anyone who tries, I will gladly kill. _

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As the days passed, Inuyasha and Kagome abided by a silent rule of pretend. Both acted as if Sango and Miroku were only going to be gone for a short while. The absence of the two travelers left a hole in the fabric of village life. A woman would giggle and Inuyasha would think Miroku was up to his usual lechery before remembering that the monk was gone. Kagome would hear a cat mewl and smile ecstatically before realizing that Sango and Kirara hadn't returned.

Busy with all the pretend, it was understandable that it took Inuyasha and Kagome a few days to realize that the little kitsune who had been with them longest was missing.

"Shippou!" Kagome called out as the forest was searched.

"Runt! Get your ass back here!" bellowed Inuyasha. "You don't and I'll whap you so hard, your head will fall off!"

Kagome gave him an exasperated and disgusted look.

"What?" Inuyasha asked defensively. "What'd I do?"

"Do you honestly expect him to come back if you're threatening him?" she asked, hands on her hips.

Inuyasha shrugged eloquently. "Could work."

"Not likely," Kagome disagreed with a shake of her head. "Why don't you keep following the trail. Is it almost fresh?"

Inuyasha sighed but inhaled deeply again. It was faint but there- the familiar scent of one kitsune cub. "He went this way," Inuyasha muttered and he led the way closer to the missing child.

Kagome began calling Shippou's name again and Inuyasha looked for clues. It had been this way for the last six hours since a panicked Kagome had realized that Shippou hadn't been back in five days. As the little youkai had never stayed away this long, she was understandably nervous.

"Shippou! I have pocky and ninja food in every flavor! Come out!" Kagome bribed at the top of her lungs.

"Shippou! Where are you?" Inuyasha yelled, searching underneath tree roots and in branches.

Kagome crouched at a brook and took a sip of water._ My legs are killing me, _she groused mentally._ Where is he? Why won't he come out? _

Crouching next to her, Inuyasha rubbed the back of his neck. "Why don't we go back to the village?" he suggested. "We can eat and then quickly come back here. We won't have to stop or anything because he's not here."

"You can't smell him here, can you?"

"The scent is stone cold. At least a few days old," admitted Inuyasha reluctantly.

"I knew it," groaned Kagome, dropping her head into her hands. After a moment, she raised her head. "All right. Back to the village. I'm starving."

Not a word was said on the way back, each too preoccupied with mental images of what could happen to a tiny kitsune in a dangerous forest alone.

"Stop by the river," Kagome suggested once Inuyasha slid her from his back. "I need to refill some pitchers."

Inuyasha shrugged. Stomping inside the hut, he dropped to the ground to lean his back against the wall.

"Have ye heard nothing of the little one?" Kaede asked anxiously.

Inuyasha mutely shook his head.

"Oh dear. This cannot be good. An ominous feeling in this…" Kaede murmured.

"Inuyasha!"

Both Kaede and the half demon turned in surprise as Kagome pushed aside the curtain door.

"Inuyasha, look at this!" Kagome demanded, fighting a losing battle with tears. She shoved a paper under his nose.

Carefully taking the paper, Inuyasha felt his eyes widen. This was not good…

A carefully rendered crayon drawing proclaimed this to be Shippou's work. In it were the six members of the shard hunting party. Miroku was in his purple robes but now sported huge claws and fangs, a stump that glared an angry red and deeply furrowed eyebrows. It was a dark and angry Miroku that Shippou had captured. In thick black wax, huge crayon scribbles covered the monk almost completely.

At the almost unseeable Miroku figure's feet was Sango. Her shirt was open and copious amounts of red were pouring from a gaping hole in her chest. She was obviously dying. Kirara was next to Sango, clearly dead with all four paws in the air. However, the crayon Sango was ignoring this, only looking at the black mass that was Miroku.

Kagome was on the lower left hand corner of the page with a scary looking Inuyasha at her side. Though neither sported any ferocious looking body parts, they had eyes only for the drama taking place above them. Concentrating only on the Miroku and Sango drawings, Inuyasha and Kagome pictures were standing on a wailing Shippou. Blue marks denoting tears erupted from the crayon Shippou's eyes and created an ocean that was swallowing the bottom of the page.

The picture was obvious but potent.

"Shit….," muttered Inuyasha. "The runt thinks we hate him."

"Turn the page around," said Kagome in a choked voice. "Turn the drawing over."

Almost afraid of what he would see, Inuyasha flipped the paper. Quickly reading the words, he could hear Kagome disintegrating into tears next to him.

_Dear Everyone, _the words said_, You hurt my feelings and I realized that you don't care about me. I was crying by the village river and a kitsune family came to me. They liked me and said they'd adopt me. I'm going with them. I was always in the way here. Now you can all do whatever you want without me. Don't come looking for me. I don't want to see you. Shippou._

"We have to go get him," sobbed Kagome. "We can't just let him go."

"Calm thyself," shushed Kaede. "We must plan a course of action that will lead to the kit, not cry."

"I know," Kagome said with a valiant effort to stop weeping. "So what are we going to-"

"Kagome," Inuyasha interrupted uncomfortably. _So many things about Shippou's trail make sense now._ "If he is with a kitsune family, then there is no way we'll be able to find him. Kitsune are the trickiest and the slyest of all youkai. I wondered how Shippou was able to mask his scent at some points in the forest. He's a tricky enough brat on his own but he's not that good. Full grown kitsunes though…" Inuyasha trailed off. "I'll try but there's gonna be very little I can do."

Kagome looked at him in horror. "No…"

"This is what small youkai do, hide their scent trails. It's a hunter and hunted thing. Usually, the larger an animal youkai is, the stupider it gets. The smaller animal youkai are among the smartest of the youkai. Kitsune's are the best out there," Inuyasha said with a sigh.

"What are you saying?" Kagome asked quietly.

"It's already been a couple of days. The chances of us finding him are really small."

"I don't care!" Kagome shouted, a stubborn look on her face. "I want to find him."

"All right," Inuyasha agreed.

It was useless.

Shippou had left no trail for them to follow. The pair searched for a week, wandering far away from the village and scrutinizing every bush, hill, tree, rock and shrub.

Returning exhausted to Kaede's, Kagome and Inuyasha collapsed inside a hut.

"Have ye found him?" Kaede asked fretfully.

Kagome said nothing, merely turning her head away from the rheumy old eyes.

"No Kaede-baba. We can't find him. He's gone," Inuyasha admitted quietly.

Next to him, Kagome curled up on the floor, sniffing.

Kaede straightened slowly. "I be in my hut if there is reason for me," the old miko said softly. A tear snaked down a wrinkled cheek.

Neither Inuyasha nor Kagome noticed.

"What is going on?" Kagome asked between cries. "Why is everything going wrong?"

"I don't know," Inuyasha said, unsure of what he should be saying or what he should be doing. _Why can't comforting have to do with killing? _he thought despondently. _I'm good at that._ He would love to confront a demon about anything right now and put his entire being into the battle. The ache of his muscles, the weight of Tetsuiga and the threat of death would be a welcome reprieve from his thoughts.

Kagome sniffed as memories of Shippou's cheerful sweetness bombarded her. Shippou smiling, Shippou tricking Inuyasha, Shippou defending her while his knees shook, he was gone now and would never do any of it again.

Unbidden, scenes of the comradely affection she had shared with her departed friends invaded her mind. All six of them arguing about bathing, playing games to pass the time, sleeping in a circle around a campfire, laughing and teasing one another- never again.

_I only have Inuyasha now, _Kagome thought as a combination of stress and loneliness worked its way though her body._ He's all I have left. My only friend. Is he going to leave too? s_he wondered as a feeling not unlike effervescent bubbles shot through her stomach.

_He can't leave_, she thought desperately.

With a lunge, Kagome clambered onto Inuyasha's lap, ignoring his shocked gasps and strangled protests. Tucking her head into the crook of his neck, she whispered, "Please don't leave me. I won't be able to handle it. Don't leave…"

"I'm not!" Inuyasha objected. "But, but you're on my lap…" He squirmed underneath her. Tightening her hold around him, Kagome burrowed her nose into the vee of his top. Inuyasha's breath hitched and, unknown to Kagome, his fists clenched at his sides.

As minutes passed, Kagome relaxed. It was reassuring to feel another human being, a person who wasn't running off.

"Um, are you getting off now?" Inuyasha asked, his voice audibly nervous.

Kagome blinked up at him and shifted. With a jolt, an unfamiliar object poked her. _Tetsuiga's hilt? _she thought absently, still consumed with thoughts of Shippou._ No, it's much thicker. Wider too. What on earth…_

Eye flying open, Kagome understood. What she was sitting on became clear and all thoughts of old companions left her in the rush of realization. Feeling her face flush a deep red, Kagome knew she should be jumping off the hanyou as quickly as possible. Yet, her body didn't move.

A daring plan was born in her mind. It was a definite gamble. She could lose it all or win everything.

"I asked if you were planning on moving anytime soon," Inuyasha grumbled, trying to not breath in Kagome's alluring scent or feel the softness of her breasts as they pressed against him.

_There's no going back_, Kagome cautioned herself but her arms were already moving to twine around Inuyasha's neck.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha said in surprise. "What, what are you doing?"

"Insurance," she admitted softly as she pressed her lips against his.

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A/N: Well, gee- I wonder what next chapter has. A lemon perhaps? I hope you liked this chapter, even though it was 26 pages of unrepentant angst overload. I wanted to get that feeling of everything happening at once as that's what Kagome felt and what caused her act the way she is at the end and in the next chapter. I couldn't get that feeling when I split the chapter up so the final product was this insanely large, angst ridden chapter.

Review and let me know what you think!


	7. Insurance Policy

A/N: Long time, no update! (isn't stating the obvious fun?)

Warning the following chapter contains a graphic, long lemon (sex scene for those who still think of lemons as in a tart fruit) and is NOT appropriate for minors! If you aren't supposed to be reading it, don't!

Read, review but most of all, enjoy!

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_Feeling her face flush a deep red, Kagome knew she should be jumping off the hanyou as quickly as possible. Yet, her body didn't move._

_A daring plan was born in her mind. It was a definite gamble. She could lose it all or win everything. _

"_I asked if you were planning on moving anytime soon," Inuyasha grumbled, trying to not breath in Kagome's alluring scent or feel the softness of her breasts as they pressed against him._

_There's no going back, Kagome cautioned herself but her arms were already moving to twine around Inuyasha's neck. _

"_Kagome!" Inuyasha said in surprise. "What, what are you doing?" _

"_Insurance," she admitted softly as she pressed her lips against his. _

Chapter Seven: Insurance Policy:

Inuyasha stiffened under Kagome's assault. Her lips were petal soft and everything he had wanted but this kiss was too sudden. Unused to such close contact, Inuyasha froze.

Kagome shifted her lips over his, trying to cajole an answering movement from him. Moving slightly with her hips, she brushed herself over his lap and tilted his head back, pushing him to accept a more forceful kiss. _I feel comfortable on Inuyasha's lap_, Kagome realized happily. She seemed to fit over him, as if straddling him was what her body was meant for. As she pressed herself gently on top of him, Kagome came to a much more unpleasant revelation.

Inuyasha had completely deflated.

Kagome sat up slowly, pulling away from the still unresponsive Inuyasha. "I don't understand," she said to herself. Blue grey eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you enjoy that?" she asked the embarrassed hanyou.

"You attacked me!" Inuyasha snapped, his muscles finally responding. His arms swept up and shoved Kagome from him. She landed with a grunt and widened eyes. Inuyasha was unaware of his panting breath but could feel his body burning as he ran out of the hut and flipped into a treetop.

"I didn't attack you! I kissed you, you jerk!" Kagome shouted as she followed, stamping her foot.

"No," came the retort from the hiding half demon, "you attacked me with your lips!"

Kagome glared up at the tree. "Sit."

With a thump, Inuyasha plummeted to the ground. Not giving him time to run away, Kagome walked over to the fallen half demon and sat herself gracefully on his back. "Why on earth would a kiss make you think I attacked you? We've kissed before," Kagome said bluntly.

Glad for once that his face was shoved into the earth, Inuyasha said nothing, finding comfort in silence.

"Talk to me," urged Kagome. "I won't get off you until you do."

"What's with all the sudden touching?" Inuyasha rhetorically grumped. Flipping over so that Kagome was on his lower abdomen, he looked up at the girl. "I just don't get why you're suddenly want to kiss and shit," he answered honestly. "You've never really seemed to be into it before."

"I was but I was too shy," Kagome replied, her cheeks turning a slight rose. "Now, I'm not and I want to. Why the heck don't you?" she asked, going onto the offensive.

Inuyasha sat up abruptly, not liking the tone of that question. "I do! Just…I was taken by surprise."

"Well now you have plenty of warning," Kagome said seriously. "I want to have sex."

Inuyasha's eye widened and his pupils dilated in shock. His throat moved but he began to choke, gasping and coughing. For a few minutes all that could be heard was Inuyasha's sputtering and choking breaths. Finally, all the words clouding his brain and tangling his tongue came out. "What!" the hanyou shouted, his voice hoarse and high pitched.

He looked around to see if anyone had overheard Kagome's rash words but luckily no one was around. Pushing her in front of him, he shoved Kagome a good ways from the little village that had become their base of operations. Ignoring her exasperated sighs, Inuyasha forced her to keep walking until the pair was surrounded by trees and bushes, completely isolated.

Whirling to face Kagome, Inuyasha glared ferociously and asked in a shout, "How can you say something like that? I thought we were talking about kissing!"

_A little too much information too soon_, Kagome observed as she saw Inuyasha's flabbergasted expression but there was no going back now. Kagome wrapped her small hand around a silver forelock and refused to let go. "I can say it because I mean it."

Inuyasha stopped tugging at her hand and looked hard into her eyes, gold meeting blue grey. He shook his head in confusion. "You're serious…"

Kagome nodded her head slowly, shyly. "I want this. I want you." With one hand, she pressed the hanyou to sit on the ground, his back against rough bark.

Never breaking his gaze, she moved herself onto his lap with gentle pressure. Her thighs encased his and her hands settled onto his shoulders, gripping him tightly. Kagome leaned forward until their chests were pressed together lightly and she could see the pores on his neck shift as he swallowed nervously. Resting her forehead against his, she asked the fateful question.

"Do you want me?"

Inuyasha flushed a bright red. Turning his head from her, he refused to answer as his head swam and throat dried. Kagome asked again as she laid her head down into the crook of his neck, her hands shifting to cradle his upper arms. Inuyasha swallowed again, desperately wishing she was not on his lap. The answer he knew he should give, the only possible answer to give, was on the tip of his tongue and refused to trip off.

His nose was filled with her scent, now corrupted with the odor of old saline from so many cried tears. His eyes could see only a small and sweet figure of the girl who adored him for so long. His ears heard nothing except her words and breath. His body felt the smooth planes and lush curves of her frame and registered that alone.

"Kagome…," he groaned as she shifted deliberately. "I…need to think…"

The schoolgirl merely pressed closer. "Don't think," she urged, her hands beginning to move rhythmically up and down his arms. "I need you to touch me," she admitted huskily. "Please."

Inuyasha felt his blood traveling places it shouldn't. Everything about her was calling to him but the very thought of getting that close to another person made him slightly nauseous. "I can't," he pleaded for reasons he couldn't articulate. "Please get off."

Kagome shook her head, unmoved by his frantic request. "I won't. Whatever is stopping you, put it to the side," she commanded. "Just feel."

"I can't," Inuyasha said brokenly, almost begging her to understand.

"You will," swore Kagome, seeing her security brace himself to escape. Grasping his hands firmly, she said again, "You will. You have to."

"Why?" he asked miserably. It just wasn't possible for him to pull away from her, when she was sending out all the signals to his base instincts. A rough voice was whispering in his ear to throw her to the ground, spread her open and ruthlessly fuck her until she screamed with pleasure and her belly filled with pups. Inuyasha shook his head, whipping it side to side. _I don't know what to do_, he thought as Kagome's hand slipped into his hakama. _I can't breath and I can't think and…and…oh, her hand is hot and I've wanted this for so long…!_

Kagome bit her lip, vague mental self-threats of consequences spoiling her concentration. _Stop thinking_, she commanded to herself as she tugged off the weakly protesting hanyou's shirt.

"Kagome," Inuyasha gasped out as her mouth lowered to linger on his cheeks, neck, nose and chin. She didn't reply but merely moved his hands onto her waist. Almost against his will, Inuyasha could feel his fingers and claws begin to massage a sliver of skin underneath her shirt.

Kagome hummed her approval and lifted one hand to leisurely stroke Inuyasha's ear.

_Like being hit with lightning_, Inuyasha thought distantly as his own strangled gasp echoed between trees.

Kagome jerked back, a little shocked at the passionate response the innocuous motion had created. "You like that?" she whispered, purposefully stroking the appendage with her nails as she rocked onto him.

Inuyasha cried out weakly, clawed hands scraping wildly at the distaff beneath him. Kagome leaned forward and sucked his ear into her hot, wet mouth. Inuyasha arched, a scream of pleasure tearing out of him. Hips bucking and penis erect to a point beyond pain, Inuyasha broke free of his restraint.

Throwing Kagome underneath him, Inuyasha kissed her desperately and forcefully. Kagome moaned her delight and eagerly answered his probing tongue with her own. The feeling of the squirming woman beneath him and the scent of her arousal were a heady combination to the hanyou.

It was as if all the tension of the last few days and weeks were transformed into unrepentant sexual longing. Struggling against each other in the effort to get closer, nothing existed but flesh, nerves, sex and an ache that grew and grew.

Foreplay was not even considered. Soft and gently spoken words would merely have diluted the experience, the first experience, of pure unrepentant lust. Sweaty skin, gasping breaths, and naughty hands that teased, cajoled and tempted into wickedly delightful behavior were the entire world to Kagome and Inuyasha.

For the first time in a long time, it was good to be alive.

"I've craved you," Inuyasha whispered hotly as his mouth descended upon a still covered nipple. He sucked it deeply into his mouth, fangs racking the sensitive point. Kagome let out a high pitched version of her companions name, digging her fingers into silver hair and pressing him closer.

"I've wanted you beneath me for a long time," Inuyasha continued as he switched to the neglected breast. He tugged on the turgid nipple, causing Kagome's nether regions to flood shamelessly as she panted and moaned for more.

"I'm gonna fuck you," Inuyasha said with relish as he looked down on the sobbing Kagome.

"God yes!" she cried out, hips thrusting up to grind into his. Her hands grabbed at any of his skin and Inuyasha groaned as her little fingers hugged his erection through the fire rat material.

"Again!" he commanded with a moan, pumping his hips with little jerks. Kagome struggled up and took him in both of her hands, setting a wild rhythm, her hands squeezing him tightly.

Inuyasha laughed exultantly as he could feel his orgasm approaching. It was everything he had ever imagined it to be and more.

It was his inner beast, the insatiable demon inside his soul, that spurred Inuyasha to push away her hands.

_Stupid half breed, _purred the red eyed monster that was himself_. Only a half breed would be content with a mere fondling. A true man or monster wants everything. Take her! Take her and her blood! _

_Yes, _Inuyasha agreed frantically_. Blood and sex…!_

"Do I want you?" Inuyasha mimicked sarcastically as he ripped away Kagome's skirt and underwear. Abruptly, his head ducked down and he inhaled her excitement, his nose brushing sensitive skin.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome gasped, her thighs automatically clenching around his skull, wetting his hair and bangs with her arousal as she twisted and tried to get his mouth on her hidden sensitive flesh.

Effortlessly breaking her hold, Inuyasha reared up onto his knees and simply opened his hakama pants to release his erection, heavy and full. He shifted into position and ran his tongue up her slender neck, sucking and biting it lightly. Kagome shivered and pleaded with him.

"I need this! Hurry, hurry please!" she moaned deliriously, legs spreading wide apart as an invitation for his intrusion.

Inuyasha finally claimed her mouth, possessive, hot and erotic. Bracing himself on his arms beside her, he surged into her with one hard thrust.

The pain wiped all euphoria out. Kagome cried out in hurt and tried to push Inuyasha away.

"No way bitch," Inuyasha snarled at the weeping female. "_I need you_, I need you just like this."

"It hurts," she sobbed.

"Too bad. You asked for this," Inuyasha replied callously yet he did not move in her. As he recaptured her lips, one hand stroked her breast while the other found the nub between her legs. He teased her body until she once again shifted under him. A dangerous, fang-filled smile was on his face as Inuyasha rose and fell into Kagome's welcoming heat.

A storm of need and hunger washed over the pair and their hips moved in rhythm, quick and forceful. The fire in their blood built and was fanned by wandering hands and mouths.

The blood roaring in his ears, Inuyasha almost sobbed as he sank into her again and again, her name breaking on his lips as his breath was robbed from him. She was exquisite inside, tight and wet, welcoming as she caused his body to go up in a conflagration of intense sexual pleasure.

Kagome was gasping continuously, her body sizzling with the friction Inuyasha was generating with his hips. She groaned a protest whenever he withdrew from her depths and moaned a thankful prayer as he would thrust back in.

"Inu…yasha!" she called out as all her limbs grew hotter and hotter, every nerve sensitized and her skin became too constraining for her blood.

Inuyasha plunged faster and faster as Kagome's inner walls became to squeeze and spasm around him. The feeling of his rigid length as it plowed through her was more then he could take and he could feel something approaching from within him.

Something about her inner thighs was calling to the half demon and, in his frenzy, Inuyasha obeyed his instincts. With sharp claws and a deft hand, Inuyasha wiped up the virginal blood that had he had ripped from Kagome and spattered onto her thighs. There was only a bit but the very scent of it was enough to force every latent instinct into life. He continued to thrust deeply into Kagome but lifted his hand to suck at the fingers coated with her innocence. Red blood gushed into his mouth, sweet and addictive. Inuyasha shuddered violently at the sensation and taste.

The overload of his senses proved too intense for the hanyou and Inuyasha exploded deep within Kagome, swearing and sobbing her name. The red life force went easily down his throat just as his seed easily entered the girl below him.

Thrusting wildly as his orgasm came, Inuyasha's passion hurled Kagome over the edge of restraint and she screamed out her pleasure, hands clenching as spots danced in her vision.

Swallowing wildly and trying to catch his breath, Inuyasha's sweat dropped onto Kagome's uniform shirt. Kagome closed her eyes and shivered with the aftershocks.

She had heard of it, she had almost expected it but the intensity of what had happened was still jarring. Attempting to get her mind in order was useless and with a sigh, Kagome abandoned the effort. Inuyasha slowly dropped his head onto her chest, still breathing heavily, his body slowly settling against hers. Kagome laid a gentle kiss on his forehead as she drifted off to sleep. Inuyasha followed her soon after, exhausted and sated.

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Kagome woke up groggily, unsure of where she was. Her body was sore in odd places and she gingerly stood up.

_Where am I_? she wondered nervously_. Where's ev-_ "What the hell?" she shouted as her sudden state of half undress hit her. Looking around frantically, she finally found her skirt in the mud. As she picked it up, a twinge in her lower areas brought back all of last night and she whirled around, looking for her now lover.

"Inuyasha?" she called softly. "Inuyasha?"

No reply came and Kagome stood for a moment, perplexed and confused. "Inuyasha!" she said in a loud voice. "Where are you?"

With no other option, she used her trump card. "Sit boy!" In the distance, what might have been a thud was heard and Kagome jogged in that direction. Every few minutes she called out the incantation, listening for that particular noise. It was no use. _I'm lost_, she admitted to herself as she glanced around. Surrounded by trees that all looked the same and no landmarks, Kagome didn't know where she was going at all.

_You dummy, you're totally lost_, she berated herself. Trying not to even think on Inuyasha's betrayal and abandonment, Kagome relented and yelled out her problem to Inuyasha. _He'll hear and come rescue me._

Throwing herself onto a comfortable looking patch of grass, she jumped up with a yelp. _Stupid rocks,_ she inwardly hissed as she rubbed her sore bottom. _I never see them there._

"Rocks in feudal Japan hide," she grumbled.

"No, you just don't look before you sit," came a unexpected reply. Kagome lifted her eyes to the welcome sight of Inuyasha reclining on the balls of his feet, just out of arms reach.

"Inuyasha…" she whispered. _What does someone say to the guy you've given your virginity to? _She wondered uneasily._ What do you say the morning after?_

Inuyasha spoke no reply, looking as uneasy as Kagome felt.

A silence descended on the two, uncomfortable and unwanted.

"This isn't how it was supposed to be," Kagome whispered. She could feel tears in her eyes. In the back of her mind, she had been hoping that Inuyasha had gone to gather firewood or catch some breakfast. However, his arms were empty and Kagome knew she had simply been deluding herself.

" I don't know what we did," Inuyasha blurted out. Grey blue eyes widened in surprise before slanting in the hanyou's direction.

_Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that_, Kagome thought in almost amused horror.

It was obvious to Inuyasha that the girl had no idea what he was talking about. Frustrated and upset, he settled onto the forest floor with a discouraged sigh, tapping his thigh with three claws as he always did when upset.

" I mean, I know _what_ we did. When I say I don't know what we did, I really mean that I don't know why we did those things," Inuyasha tried to explain in one breath.

"You're not making any sense," Kagome said slowly, afraid that Inuyasha was making sense, just not the sense she wanted to hear.

Inuyasha sighed again. "The only time someone explained all this sort of shit to me was Sesshomaru and Lord stick-up-his-ass was pretty tight mouthed about it. But what I got from-"

"_Sesshomaru_ taught you about sex!" Kagome exclaimed blankly.

Inuyasha shot her a glare. "Would you mind? Yes, my older brother taught me about… copulation."  
Kagome leaned back. _There's an odd term_, she thought uneasily. Of all the people she expected to use such a technical word, Inuyasha wasn't even on the list. It was an indication of something Kagome wasn't sure she was ready for.

"Anyways, what I got from the speech he gave me was that it means something. I wanted to do those things. I've wanted to for a long time. But, at the same time, I didn't because they're weird and stand for… things."

Kagome felt as if Inuyasha had struck her. "What are you saying?"

"I…you see," he rubbed a hand through his hair. "I can't have what we did mean anything…emotional. I tried to stop," he sighed. "You wouldn't let me and I loved it. But I just…just can't have this mean anything to you beyond what it meant then."

"I was a casual fuck." Kagome spoke her realization out loud. "It had been the loneliest moment of my life and I turned to you." Her hands fisted and she swallowed back hot rage and cold, expected disappointment. "Now that we've done it, I'm no longer important."

Inuyasha winced and looked away. "No, nothing like that…I just need space, I wasn't ready for that type of thing."

Kagome glared, any sympathy she might have felt dying quickly. "You weren't ready?" she scoffed. "You seemed pretty ready!"

Inuyasha let out another sigh, an angry huff of air as he strived to make sense to the irate female. "I was ready! Just…not all the way!"

"You were all the way, Inuyasha," Kagome said harshly. "All the god damn way."

The half demon jerked. In all the time he had known her, Kagome never cursed habitually. If she was cursing now…

"I can't believe you," Kagome muttered as she leapt to her feet.

"It's not like I asked you to start touching me!" Inuyasha shouted belligerently.

Kagome whirled away, stomping her feet immaturely. It felt good to get her frustration out through violence, as little as it was. "You just lead the way back to Kaede!" she hurled furiously over her shoulder. "I don't want to talk to you!"

_God damn bitch!_ Inuyasha thought incredulously. _I got fuckin' raped and all she can think of her hurt feelings that I didn't stay to fuck her in morning! Bitch!_

He jumped in front of Kagome but refused to say a word, simply standing in her way.

"You're making me mad on purpose," Kagome cried out. "Move or I'll say it!"

"Everything with you comes back to that damn word!" Inuyasha yelled. "Go ahead and say it! It's not like you can hurt me!"

Kagome sucked in a breath. For some reason, Kikyou's image was appearing in her mind. Serene, demure, cold and perfect Kikyou.

Her eyes blazing, Kagome spat out, " I know that. The only one who can hurt you is Kikyou!"

"Wha-?" Inuyasha was completely dumbfounded. _How the hell did Kikyou come into this?_ "I wasn't talking about her!" Inuyasha defended himself.

"You're always talking about her!" Kagome burst out. "Even when you're not!"

"Now whose not making sense?" Inuyasha snorted.

"If Kikyou had been here, you never would have done…that with me, would you?" Kagome asked sadly, dropping onto the floor.

Inuyasha stared at her. "What's with you? Happy then mad and then angry and then pissed off- are you okay?"

Kagome looked up at him, his concerned gold eyes very close. Swallowing back a surprised gasp, Kagome leaned back.

"Never mind," she sighed, stretching as she got up.

Inuyasha watched her dejected and resigned face. She was walking away from him, stumbling erratically as if his inherent rejection was too much for her to bear.

Inuyasha held out a hand to stop her but there was nothing to say. She was right and they both knew it.

The walk back to Kaede's took over an hour but not a word was spoken. Kagome and Inuyasha were seething with hurt, self righteous indignation and embarrassment. Breaking the silence was too much to accomplish. Yet as the village grew closer and closer, problems that had been forgotten about were remembered.

Kagome slowly walked to a stop, her angry stomps fading away. Head down, she simply couldn't force herself to face the village.

_Is it the sex that makes me feel like a different person? Is it the space I got from all my problems that makes them feel so much more unbearable?_ Kagome wondered despondently.

Inuyasha stared at the silent and still Kagome. Torn between wanting to soothe her and the strong sense of betrayal he felt at her cavalier dismissal of his pain, he couldn't decide what to do. Scowling ferociously, Inuyasha shook off his self imposed paralysis and snatched at Kagome's hand. "Come on, move already!" he snapped. "You were the one who so desperately wanted to come back to this hellhole," he muttered in a snide tone.

"I-I don't want to!" Kagome protested, trying to yank her hand away. "I can't!"

Inuyasha paused for a moment but shook his head resolutely. "No way. You thought of the dumb idea, you suffer."

"Please Inuyasha, I can't go back there!"

"Why the hell not?" groused Inuyasha as he dragged the reluctant Kagome home.

"Because there's nothing to go back there for!" Kagome burst out. Tears leaked from her eyes and she impatiently used her free hand to wipe them away.

Inuyasha stopped suddenly as the truth behind her words hit him. Sighing, he wordlessly headed toward the river. Kagome's head dropped to her chest in thanks but neither said a word as they approached the river bank.

Feeling a desperate euphoria filling her soul, Kagome jogged past Inuyasha and threw off her shoes and socks. Splashing into the river, she waded as noisily and messily as she could. Her legs lifted gracelessly and she sent plumes of water flying through the air.

"What are you doing?" Inuyasha asked curiously.

"Forgetting," Kagome called back breathlessly. "Forgetting about everything!"

Inuyasha hesitated but jumped into the river, landing next to her. Though he would look like an idiot, forgetting was worth it.

Stamping and jumping with abandon, Kagome and Inuyasha leapt around, pushing water out of the river, turning their portion of the riverbank into muddy earth.

It was inevitable that Kagome would slip on a slick river rock. Arms flailing and pin-wheeling, she fell toward the water but was caught by Inuyasha's quick hands.

Staring into her eyes, her lovely eyes that showcased her heart and soul, Inuyasha knew he had to say something to make up for earlier. _I have to make her understand… _

"It's different what I feel for you then what I felt for Kikyou," Inuyasha suddenly said harshly and abruptly. Kagome stopped still, unsure what to do or say. With no options, she stayed quiet.

"With her, I was scared the entire time, nervous, uncomfortable and I sort of hated it, being so insecure and overly cautious," the half demon said softly, not looking at Kagome's shocked expression. "I knew it was only a matter of time before she broke my heart. With you," Inuyasha took a breath for courage. "When I realized I had fallen in love with you….I had never felt so safe. You make me feel safe."

"Oh Inuyasha…." Kagome whispered with a blinding smile.

Their breath whistled out simultaneously and two chests heaved in tandem. Inuyasha lifted her gently, settling her smaller body against his. A small hand landed delicately on his wet torso and Inuyasha shuddered.

_His eyes turn almost a honey color when he's aroused,_ Kagome realized absently as his mouth descended to take hers. Then he was kissing her and all thoughts flew away. Hands moving slowly, mouths and tongues exploring leisurely and bodies touching gratefully, the pair could not help but revel in their physicality. It was impossible to not touch each other, it was inconceivable to not ride themselves of clothing and enjoy the feeling of cold water contrasting against their heated skin. Their lovemaking was as slow and delightful as the other had been fast and ecstatic.

When it was over, Kagome snuggled into Inuyasha's embarrassed form and whispered a reply.

"I love you too."

One would imagine that receiving a reciprocal confession of love would cause the heavens to shine, the planets to align and the Fates would agreeably not ruin life for once. This foray into delusions would be quite wrong.

In the years to follow this inauspicious beginning, Kagome and Inuyasha would both wonder if it would have been better to never admit their love, never act on it and simply exist with wondering how it could have been.

They never spoke this secret doubt to each other, this passive wish to change the past. It was the nature of their changed relationship that neither felt comfortable confiding in the other.

In the battle to become lovers, their friendship was the casualty.

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A/N: I hope you all liked it! Let me know what you thought!


	8. Hurt

A/N: Let me just say something. If you write and post stuff for others to validate you, you're bound to be disappointed. It's a good thing I write to write.

This story is probably going to have about 15 or 17 chapters. Depends on how many lemons I end up throwing in.

--Warning--

undetailed lemon in this chapter

--End of Warning--

Anyways, to those (two) who read and review and enjoy- here's the next chapter!

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**Chapter Eight**

**Hurt**

Kagome trudged home from school, her feet seemingly connected to the concrete. Inuyasha's hurtful words kept on playing over and over in her mind. Perhaps if this was the first time he had said something like this, she could have brushed it off. However, there were many other occasions, too many, Inuyasha had snapped and bluntly told her that he was involved mainly for the sex. Kagome shuddered. No matter how many times it happened, it hurt as strongly as the first time. She sighed deeply, a memory assaulting her.

-------------2 Years Earlier-----------------

Kagome collapsed on Inuyasha's chest, sweaty, exhausted and sated. Inuyasha was panting happily, arms spread wide.

_Sex_, she thought with a silent giggle, _was not overrated at all_. The past six months had completely vindicated her modern era's preoccupation with any type of sex.

"You're comfortable," Kagome whispered as she nuzzled her nose into the crook of Inuyasha's neck. His body did a strange jerk and Kagome giggled out loud.

"Are you ticklish there?" she asked mischievously. Her nose went straight back to the crook and she rubbed his skin enthusiastically.

Inuyasha squirmed and cursed. "No, I am not ticklish!" he spat out. "Just, just get off!" He growled ferociously and Kagome only laughed harder. "I love it when you do that!" she confided.  
Kagome kept on snuggling tighter against him, her nose never leaving the sensitive juncture between shoulder and throat. "Get off!" Inuyasha shouted. With a fraction of his strength, Inuyasha shoved Kagome off.

"You know, you've been shoving me a lot recently," Kagome muttered as she glared at the hanyou. "Plus, I'm sweaty and naked and now there's a ton of dirt all over me."

"Gee, I'm sorry!" Inuyasha said sarcastically. Jumping up he rushed around, grabbing his cloths hurriedly and pushing himself into them.

"Inuyasha…?" Kagome asked curiously, "are you all right?"

"No!" Inuyasha spat out. "I am not all right and neither are you!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she huffed, now also trying to dress.

"I thought we discussed this," Inuyasha said finally, not looking into her blue eyes. "I thought we decided to not...to not put emotion in."

Kagome stared at him in shock. "I thought…I thought you….love me."

Inuyasha paced, careful to not glance in the distraught girl's direction. "I do," he admitted after a few minutes passed. "It's just…I don't want to touch you…that way."

Kagome glared and breathed heavily through her nose, trying to remain calm. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, aware her voice was harsher then usual yet again. Inuyasha turned his head away, thick bangs blocking her view of his expressive eyes. Partly desperate and partly furious, Kagome yanked on a triangular ear hard. "Answer me!" she shouted, feeling hurt overwhelming her control. "What do you mean you don't want love when we touch?"

"Bitch, stop it!" he bellowed, slapping her hand away from his sensitive appendages. "I meant that!"

"Well, explain 'that' because I have no idea what you're talking about!" she replied, absentmindedly rubbing her aching hand.

Inuyasha scowled. "Do I have to?" he asked belligerently. "I've talked more lately then I ever have before."

"You're also getting more sex then you ever did before so just call it an even trade," Kagome sniped. "Now talk."

Knowing she was right did not make it any easier. "Shit," he mumbled with heat. "I don't like all the touching and stuff-"

"I know that! I need you to clarify!" the teenaged girl anxiously interrupted.

"Shut up!" Inuyasha shouted, whirling on her. "_Just let me fucking talk_!"

Kagome nodded slowly, a little frightened by his vehemence. Inuyasha hide his eyes again and tried to ignore the sexual feelings her fear aroused in him. Unhappy and unsure of what to say, Inuyasha continued to pace.

"I do, I do…you know," Inuyasha said, blushing and unable to say the words.

Kagome sighed in irritation. "No, I don't know. Explain."

Inuyasha glared. "Sure, make this harder then it has to be. Why the hell not?" He swallowed. "I do…I do….I….Iloveyou." He exhaled a deep sigh, terribly relieved the words had been said. "I do but recently you've been touching me way too much. You never used to," he accused. "It's like the fact that we're fucking gives you the right to touch me whenever you want to."

Kagome drew back, settling onto her knees. "The fact that we're having sex doesn't mean I can touch you….?"  
"Yes," Inuyasha said, relieved she understood. "All that stroking and patting after fucking…I can't do it."  
"So no snuggling?" Kagome leaned back onto her elbows. "Is that all?" She laughed. What a silly thing to get so mad about!

Inuyasha growled. "It's more then the snuggling. I don't want the sex to mean anything."

Kagome stopped smiling. "You admitted you love me, I've said I love you. How can the sex _not_ mean something?"

Inuyasha ran a hand through his hair. "I know it makes no sense. I just don't like it."

"The sex?"

"No, that's the best part of all this," Inuyasha said carelessly. "I mean, I never would have said that I loved you if I wouldn't have gotten the sex in the bargain."

Kagome felt the world slowly grind to a halt. "…What?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "Why else would I have said it?"

"Because you love me!" Kagome sputtered.

"So?"

Kagome stared at Inuyasha. He met her eyes easily, with no reservations or embarrassment. _He has no idea! _She thought incredulously._ No idea at all!_

"If you love someone, you tell them," Kagome said slowly.

"You don't have to," Inuyasha replied sensibly.

Kagome sputtered, fighting for words. "But, but, I mean- of course you do!"

"No," Inuyasha disagreed. "You don't. Everything in life is a barter- you give something and get something back in exchange. I never would have said I loved you if I was going to get nothing back."

Kagome stumbled to her feet. "Meaning that if I wouldn't have slept with you, you never would have said anything?"

Inuyasha thought for a moment, the audacity of his speech becoming uncomfortably clear to him. "Um, yeah," he admitted with a sigh.

"You jerk!" Kagome shouted and reacted on instinct. The sound of her hand cracking against his cheek reverberated through the cave.

Inuyasha rubbed his face thoughtfully. "I kind of deserved that," he admitted softly. Kagome, panting and struggling not to cry again, nodded in a jerking motion. "Did it just come out wrong?" she asked hesitantly and hopefully.

Inuyasha shook his head slowly. "I told you I wasn't ready…"

"Shut up," Kagome snapped as she stormed from the cave. "I'm not talking to you!"

"Again?" retorted Inuyasha as he walked behind her, his arms firmly folded into his sleeves.

"Shut up!" Stumbling out of the cave that housed their illicit affair, Kagome forced herself into a quick march. "Don't you dare follow me!" she shouted over her shoulder.

"I wasn't planning on it!" Inuyasha yelled back, leaping away quickly.

Kagome began to run until she couldn't run any farther, a stitch piercing her side. _I can't believe he said that, _she thought for the thousandth time._ Doesn't he understand how horrible that was?_ Kneeling on the ground, she placed her head onto the tree trunk behind her with a thunk. _I hate my life…_

"It will soon get much worse," came the quiet comment. Kagome sat up abruptly and looked around, seeing no one but knowing the voice intimately. It was hers but deeper.

"Kikyou? Where are you?" the modern school girl called out, the recent events making her serenity short lived. "I know you're out here! You obviously have something to say so hiding is ridiculous!"

"Well look who has developed a temper…," an amused voice said. From the surrounding trees, a ghostly figure of a reincarnated shrine maiden emerged. Kikyou was flawlessly attired as usual, her white shirt sparkling and her pants perfectly clean with the one neat crease down the middle. Her black hair was shiny and healthy, neatly arranged in a ponytail that ended past her waist. Brown eyes looked down at their reincarnation. "I still cannot believe you were such a fool."

Kagome looked up at the dead version of herself. "What do you want? Last time I saw you, you were insulting Inuyasha and decided to leave forever."

"Silly child," sighed Kikyou. "Why did you have to have relations with him?"

"I wanted to," Kagome answered bitingly. "Girls in my time tend to do it whenever they want."

"He told you he loved you," Kikyou intuited from Kagome's bluster. The younger woman deflated under the knowing eyes of her older self.

"Yeah," she admitted with a sigh. "And I believed him."

"He was not lying to you," Kikyou said softly and firmly. "He does…love you."

"No, he loves sex," whispered Kagome as she rested her head on her knees in shame.

"A man such as Inuyasha does not have relations without love. He loves you," Kikyou insisted in her usual calm tone.

"He said that he only admitted he loved me so that he could have sex."

"You are so young…" murmured Kikyou, eyeing her reincarnation with something close to sympathy.

Kagome bit her lip and asked a question. "How did you know? About he and I?"

"My heart hurt suddenly…" the dead priestess answered absently. "I am a spiritual person and am sensitive to the fluctuations in emotions of those I hold close to me. Thus, when I felt his happiness with another woman, my heart ached…and I knew it could only be from one deed." Kikyou's wise brown eyes looked at Kagome's pink cheeks and downcast eyes and could not resist smiling. "It is all right. I have been waiting for this."

Kagome's head shot up and she stared at Kikyou incredulously. "What?"

"Everyone has their destiny. Mine was to be what I've become- a soulless shell of a woman," Kikyou said, each word weighed and carefully released. "You still have a chance with him…with happiness. Grab what you can. Everything else will work itself out."

Kagome stared at Kikyou_. She sounds as if she still…! _"But all those cruel things you said…" the schoolgirl whispered, terribly confused.

"Should he go on loving a woman made from clay and graveyard soul?" Kikyou asked rhetorically. "It took me some time to realize that. So I set him free…" Her back straight and tall, her chin up and her eyes resolute, Kikyou admitted to her future self her last remaining secret. "You see, I am quite in love with Inuyasha. He made me smile when no one else could. He still does." The priestess looked at Kagome sadly. "I'd give almost anything to see him smile at me with that old unconditional love. Yet he never shall and I know this. It is my fate." Getting up, Kikyou picked up her bow and arrows, settling them against her hip. "I gave him away because I love him. All I want is for him to be happy…he cannot be happy with a dead woman. Because I love him as much as I do, because I know him so well and understand him as I do, I gave him away. His honor and loyalty are unconditional but he is torn between one who is living and one who is dead. I would not have him suffer simply so I could be happy."

Kagome looked up at her predecessor and saw the true Kikyou for the first time. She was a magnificent woman, strong and powerful in not just her Powers but in her heart and will. "You awe me," Kagome admitted. "I couldn't do what you did."

"You've been doing it for years," contradicted Kikyou with a sad smile. "I suppose we truly are the same woman."

Kagome smiled and nodded ruefully. "Yep. Two sides of the same coin."

"I have something to give back to you," Kikyou said suddenly, her voice loud and suddenly jarring.

Kagome's confusion plainly showed on her expressive face.

"Sweet, innocent girl, do you not remember?" the priestess chided. "You truly are a fool."

Leaning down Kikyou softly pressed her lips against Kagome's. Frozen with shock, Kagome could only watch as a glowing light drifted from Kikyou and settled into her own chest. The cavity that held her heart suddenly felt as if it was weighed down by a great burden and Kagome realized the full import of what Kikyou had done.

"My soul," breathed the schoolgirl in a gasp.

"Your soul is returning to its full measure now," Kikyou announced softly. "Be very careful with it."

"I will," Kagome said, her hand touching her chest gently as the bursts of light increased in intensity.

With a muted groan, Kikyou fell to the floor, gasping in pain as she started the reversion to dirt and bones. "Grant me a boon," requested the dying woman softly, her hand clutching Kagome's. Her face was already losing its animation, her eyes fixed on nothingness and her lips barely moving.

Blue eyes met brown. "Sure," Kagome agreed as she stroked the rapidly cooling hand in hers.

"Do no tell him when I am gone."

"What? Why?" Kagome asked. "Doesn't he have the right to know?"

"No, it is better he go on in ignorance. Then he will not mourn. I do not wish him to be unhappy." Kikyou spasmed as the last of her stolen souls flowed away. "Remember Kagome, you and I are one person. We are one and the same…Fate is unkind…"

"I know," Kagome answered but she replied to no one.

Kikyou's body weighed heavily in her reincarnations arms and, as the girl slowly lowered the clay body to the ground, it disintegrated completely.

As Kikyou's ashes spun in the wind and began to roam the world, the words from an old song echoed in Kagome's mind. _All we are is dust in the wind…dust in the wind…._

---------------------------------

Inuyasha paced.

_Where the hell is she? It's fully dark and I can't sense her anywhere!_ He thought worriedly. _What if a demon got her or she broke her leg in some weird place or-_

Suddenly, her scent was in the air as if it had never left. Moving as fast as possible, Inuyasha found his missing woman. "Kagome!" he called out, nerves evaporating as she came into view, whole and healthy. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, grabbing her shoulders.

Her big blue grey eyes were red rimmed and Inuyasha could feel his heart being squeezed in his chest. _She hates me, _he thought miserably._ She hates me but I can't take back what I said._

He was thus quite shocked when she leaned into his touch and wrapped her arms around his torso, hugging him tightly.

"I'm sorry," he heard her say quietly. "I shouldn't have pressured you into something you weren't ready for yet."

"Kagome…," he trailed off, unable to get the words out.

"I know," the small girl said, sparring him the verbal struggle. "I know." She hugged him tighter for one moment and then released him gently. "I'll take what I can get," Kagome said with a sad smile as she looked into his golden eyes. "I always have."

"I-" Inuyasha blurted out, trying to find something to say.

Kagome shushed him and drew his mouth down to hers. With a sad groan he accepted what she was offering.

"We shouldn't be doing this with all the rest of this shit between us," he whispered before lust overtook his senses completely.

"We shouldn't be doing this," Kagome agreed between kisses. "But let's live for the now and hope that the rest will work itself out."

"We're being foolish," Inuyasha mumbled as he undressed her.

"I know."

Bodies on fire with lust, Inuyasha and Kagome's brains emptied of anything beyond the extreme sensations ricocheting through their bodies. It was a glorious, feeling nothing beyond the present. It was a wonder and Kagome finally understood why people killed for sex. It was not the emotions involved but rather the lack of all emotion but one that made it all so extraordinary.

Afterwards she was the one to roll away first.

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A/N: Well, that's another chapter up! I always have thought of Kikyou as maligned by the audience for being a selfish bitch but I honestly think she's a much deeper character then given credit for.

I hope you all liked it!

Review please!


	9. A Startling Realization

A/N: sorry for the long delay! No excuses this time! Enjoy and review please!

oh and this is a lemon/lime warning. Perhaps I should call it a limon? A leme? whatever. you get the picture. Those who are easily offended, skip those parts. You can see them coming a mile away.

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**Chapter Nine: A Startling Realization**

Kagome stretched indolently in the deep grass. It was her weekend visit to the Feudal era and all the stresses of school, family and friends were floating away as she drowsed in the sun.

"Kagome?"

The girl blinked and looked up into Inuyasha's eyes. "What?" she asked sleepily.

"What do you mean, what?" the boy snorted. "Aren't you supposed to be home by now?"

"Yeah but I don't feel like it," Kagome answered with a lethargic blink. _Well, Mondays never were my thing…_

"Don't you have a test soon?"

Sitting up, she patted his cheek. "So sweet," she saccharinely quipped. "and I do have a test. Math actually." She shrugged and laid back down, saying simply, "But I just don't care."

Inuyasha stared down at the female curling like a kitten in the warm sunshine, opened his mouth but shut it without saying a word.

'_I don't care'? When the hell did she stop caring about her damn math tests?_ Inuyasha thought in confusion. Still wary after the extremely cold reception he had gotten from his lover the last time he had asked something like that, he said nothing. Wincing as the memory of her scalding fury and the subsequent sits came back with full clarity, Inuyasha settled onto the grass besides her, arms linked behind his head in a cushion. Determined to remain unharmed, he tried to think of something other then Kagome's odd behavior.

It was impossible.

"I don't get it," he sighed. "Why all of a sudden do you not care about school?"

Kagome turned away from him with a huff. "I'm not talking about it."

"Are you not allowed back?"

"Of course I am!" snapped Kagome.

"Did someone hurt you?"

"…..No."

Inuyasha rolled on top of Kagome. "That took you a long time to answer."

She glared up at him and shoved him away. "I don't feel like talking right now."

"Bitch, get back here," Inuyasha said in a bored tone, yanking her back underneath him. "Now spill your guts. Do that talking sharing thing you're so into."

Kagome heaved a sigh. "I'm not used to an Inuyasha who wants to share."

"Get used to it. Now talk."

"It's nothing big," mumbled Kagome. "Ayumi and I had a small fight."

Golden eyes narrowed. " 'Small fight'? You said once that that girl was your best friend."

Kagome looked away. "Friends fight. It happens."

He looked at her and could see right through the mask of nonchalance she was wearing. _She's miserable_, he thought, slightly annoyed at her reticence. "What'd you two fight about?" he demanded.

"You."

Inuyasha reared back. "Me? I don't even know the bitch!"

Kagome smiled at that, the comment so typically Inuyasha, it was amusing. "I know that. The problem is that she thinks she knows you and she doesn't like you."  
"Why the hell not?" demanded Inuyasha, the familiar feeling of being hated for who he was filling him with anger.

"She thinks you're a bad influence on me," Kagome replied with a laugh. "Little does she know that I'm the one who instigated this whole thing, right?"  
_Not because I'm a half-breed then_. The half youkai rolled onto his back again and glared at the sky. "…why does she think that?"

Kagome sat up, brushing at her hair to get rid of any debris that had gotten into the strands. "I have no idea," she lied after a few long moments.

"I don't believe you," Inuyasha answered bluntly.

_Persistent as ever,_ Kagome thought sourly. "She thinks I'm not going to do anything with my life because I'm so into you and our whole…situation," she admitted.

Inuyasha frowned. "Huh…." What could he say? That he didn't want Kagome to be so into him? That he suddenly found her schooling important? Snorting softly, and needing time to gather his thoughts, he gazed at the clouds and said nothing.

Kagome leaned over his prone form and stared at him, her blue eyes shrewd with the intelligence she rarely showed. _What's going on in that head of his? _she wondered as his guileless eyes met hers. She smiled back as he smirked up at her, her mind whirling with the possibilities.

_What is he thinking?_ she speculated as he pulled her down for a kiss.

_What does he understand about what I told him?_ she questioned as he undressed her in the sunlight.

_Why is he being so understanding?_ she asked herself in frustration as her body responded to his with its usual zeal.

The last thought she had before Inuyasha's talented hands, mouth and manhood stole her ability to think was, _There has to be an angle…what does he want from me?_

_----------------------------------------------------_

"Why don't you prove her wrong?"

Kagome blinked and tried to respond in some way. Her body was deliciously sore and the euphoric orgasm that had swept through her not too long ago had satiated her into a stupor. _The boy may have no official schooling_, she mused with a devilish smile_, but he can fuck like a volcano._

"I asked you something," Inuyasha reminded her tersely. Being ignored was not a good feeling, particularly for an insecure hanyou who had grown up disregarded.

"Sorry. My mind was on other things," Kagome replied with a sly look in her eyes. Inuyasha snorted in annoyance. "Listen to me you pervert. Why don't you just prove that Ayumi wench wrong?"

"Ayumi…? What about he-oh. From before…," Kagome trailed off. "What do you mean by proving her wrong?"

"Go back to school, do really well for a while and then she'll get off your back," Inuyasha said casually.

Kagome sat up, all her sex induced lethargy evaporating like a puddle in strong sunlight. "Don't you start on me too!" she threatened.

Inuyasha shrugged indifferently, still resting on his back. "Keh, I'm not the one who cares what this Ayumi thinks. Do whatever you want. It was just a suggestion."

"Well good…," muttered Kagome uncomfortably. It really was unlike her to jump down Inuyasha's throat for talking and giving a decent suggestion.

"I thought you wanted her off your back," he said.

"I do."

"Then do something about it. The best defense is a good offense, right?" Inuyasha quoted from a book of Kagome's he had borrowed.

"True," mused Kagome, sitting up and looking for her clothes. "It's a lot more complicated then just doing something about it," she sighed. "It's high school and college entrance exams and then college itself…It's a big pain."

"Isn't that what all people do in your time?"

"Not all," protested Kagome quickly. "Some of us don't. We do what we like."

Inuyasha moved with liquid grace into Kagome's personal space. Pushing her back down onto the ground, he smirked. A heat lighting his eyes, he leaned down to whisper hotly in her ear, "Everything you like?"

Kagome shivered as his tongue delved into the shell of her ear, his intentions obvious. "Yes," she answered almost calmly. "Everything I like."

A clawed hand strayed to her breast and the pert nipple begging for his attention. He gladly obeyed. Plucking at it caused Kagome to moan happily, the scent of her arousal bringing Inuyasha's member to rigidity.

"You like that?" he asked huskily.

"Mmm," she replied throatily.

"You know what I like?" Inuyasha asked rhetorically as he pulled away to stand up. "You on your knees."

Blue eyes opened and then narrowed. "Do you?" she replied softly, pulling away from him and obviously not willing to cooperate.

"Do whatever I tell you," he threatened seriously. "You've defied me enough today and I still need to punish you for that."

"What? When did I defy you?" Kagome asked, the absurdity of taking offense when she was so close to giving him a blowjob not escaping her.

"All day today. Pulling away when I told you to talk, not doing what I said when we were fucking, snapping at me. You haven't shown me the respect I should get and you're going to pay."

"Those are the stupidest reasons I've ever heard," scoffed Kagome. "Why don't you tell me the real reason?"

Inuyasha looked down at her, furious at her for not sucking him off already and listening as she should and simultaneously fighting his instinct to hit her and make her bleed.

_We should make her bleed…, _a malevolent voice whispered in his head, seeping into all the hidden and dark parts of his soul._ Claw her just a little bit…make blood flow and the bitch will understand her place….. _

Inuyasha breathed out harshly and glared at Kagome. "I want you to do it. That's all you need to know."

"Maybe I'm not in the mood now," Kagome replied angrily.

"Do it. _Now_."

Kagome shivered as she felt the pulsation of his full youkai aura stir the air around Inuyasha and as implacable golden eyes stared her down, her instinct and nature demanded she relent to him. His hand smoothed her hair as he forced her to kneel on the ground. "Taste me," he whispered the command. "Take me into your mouth Kagome."

A coiling in her stomach told Kagome that as much as she tried to deny it, she liked it when he lost his cool and controlled her.

Feeling her lower regions react to him and his power helplessly, she settled onto her knees in front of him and looked up. "Like this?"

His eyes caught hers and he swallowed, knowing what was coming. "My cock has to be in your mouth bitch."

Kagome gazed at his hardness and her tongue darted out to lick and taste. Sharp claws were twined through her hair and the schoolgirl resisted this until she saw how heavily he was breathing and how hard his shaft was. _Poor boy is all worked up, _she thought sympathetically, not knowing that half of Inuyasha's arousal was from images of her bleeding

She smiled and moved to encase him. The devil in her made her lick at the pulsating member very slowly, the tip of her tongue moving up and down alone.

"Put it in your mouth," Inuyasha growled, the feeling of that wet muscle touching him there so wonderfully intimate and so frustratingly small an amount. She ignored him and lapped at his head, slipping her tongue against the little slit at the top and making Inuyasha hiss.

"I said, put it in your mouth," Inuyasha growled again as he gripped her hair, forcing her head to position itself to swallow him. He could feel Kagome trying to nod but he refused to let go. The tip of his dick brushed against her mouth and it jerked at the soft contact. Teasing himself, Inuyasha allowed her lips to stay closed, not forcing her to open wide and swallow him until she choked. Her eyelashes were resting like the shadow of a quarter moon against her white cheeks and a tiny smile rested on her red mouth as his penis slightly parted her lips.

Moving suddenly she sucked only the head of Inuyasha's manhood into her mouth and her hand caressing the uncovered part with tight strokes. Inuyasha threw his head back and gasped, hips arching toward her as he fell prey to her unexpected attack.

Her head bobbed down and up. Hot, wet heat slowly swallowed his length, her hand always moving as Inuyasha closed his eyes and gasped for breath, little sparks igniting behind his eyes.

"Oh god…," he breathed as she started to use her tongue to wrap around him as much as she could while still moving up and down on him. His voice was husky as he encouraged her. "Keep going...give me- argghhh…_more_….!" Her teeth tugged at his sensitive skin and Inuyasha could have died with the sweet pain happily.

The sun was shining, Kagome noticed distantly as most of her concentration was on pulling as many cries and groans from the strong man she held captive. Long stemmed grass was as green as if in a picture, waving and bending in a breeze that was warm and pleasant. Rioting patches of color were the petals of different flowers, red, yellow and white, and exploding all around the two as Inuyasha swayed on his feet and Kagome arched on her knees to deep throat him, humming as she did so. One hand gripped his hip as Kagome shifted upward to move faster on him. She pulled off entirely to breathe once and then sheathed him in one motion before his flesh could even cool. Inuyasha was quickly losing his control, his hands gripping her close as he began to pump in earnest.

Waiting was not the point of this activity.

Mutual orgasms were not the reason Kagome was swallowing Inuyasha's staff in the middle of day in a bright and cheerful meadow.

Domination was. Domination proclaimed via cumming into a bitch's mouth and it was precisely what Inuyasha decided to do.

Beyond using words, he resorted to actions, holding her head still as he shoved his full length down her throat. Enjoying the movement it made as Kagome tried to pull back slightly and slapped at him, Inuyasha felt a cresting wave of pleasure coming on. Welcoming it, he slammed into her, heedless of the damage her teeth could do, conscious only of the need to release in her mouth. With a hoarse cry of passion, Inuyasha emptied into her, the spurts of salty cum too forceful and leaking from her mouth. He panted as he sank to the ground, trying to regain his senses. His eyes widened as Kagome wiped her chin clean with one finger and then slowly sucked the finger in between her lips.

"Fuck," he whispered roughly, wiping his mouth. Kagome sat up from where his collapse had sent her sprawling and moved slowly away. "Where are you going?" he asked her in a dark voice.

Not bothering to answer, she sprang up to run but not quickly enough. His hand reached out and caught at her ankle. Toppling to the earth, Kagome glared with renewed fervor at Inuyasha and kicked out at him. "What are you so upset at?" he asked in amusement.

For a moment, the urge to purify her lover filled Kagome and she could barely restrain herself from letting the deadly lavender light flood her soul.

"You made me give you a blowjob after you were mean to me." _You idiot._ Inuyasha pulled her toward him and insolently nestled his hand in between her legs. "Get out!" Kagome spat but the hanyou only chuckled as he massaged her there for a moment. Lifting his hand that was wet with Kagome's moistness, he shook his head. "This is why we match so well. I dominate you and you get all wet."

"Well, it's not like there's anything you can do about tit," Kagome said nastily. "It's too close to the full moon for your usual, quick recovery."

"I have other things I can use."

Kagome glared at him but couldn't stop the groan from escaping her as Inuyasha spread her legs wide, not allowing her to close them. He smirked and delved in for a taste of her nectar, relishing the strangled gasp this wrung from Kagome.

_So sweet_, he groaned mentally as she drugged him with her liquid. _So wet, so hot…_His mouth moved in a penetrating kiss and he wasted no time, knowing she wanted nothing gentle.

He began to tongue her quickly, absorbing each of her gasped cries as benediction for what he had forced her to do. A finger rose and played with the little nub of pleasure he found at the apex of her thighs and Kagome squeezed her eyes shut with the sexual bliss it brought.

"Inuyasha," she moaned as she writhed under him. "Oh god…"

"More?"

"_God yes_!"

Inuyasha repeated what he was doing but more forcefully and quicker. Her breathing became more and more erratic as the familiar tightening in her gut expanded and sharpened.

His fingers….

His mouth…

Inuyasha sucked the little pleasure core into his mouth, his fangs grazing it unmercifully over and over as his mouth moved and Kagome splintered apart. Cumming in a fierce spasm, she was left clutching hunks of dirt and grass while dazed and boneless.

The two sprawled backward, each exhausted. The sun had moved during their actions and Kagome sat up finally, the late hour registering.

"What should I do?" she asked rhetorically.

Inuyasha sat up and stretched. Moving lithely, he gathered up his clothes and dressed as he talked. "Well, if it makes everyone leave you alone, then just got to school and they'll shut up. Plus," he added with a smirk as he hauled her onto her feet and pressed her naked form against the rough fabric of his hakama, "then you can spend all your time under me."

Kagome rolled her eyes with a smile and looked for her clothes. "Because I have nothing else to do with my time."

Inuyasha raised his eyebrows and tossed the pants he found to her. "What else? You go to school sometimes but most of the time you're here fucking me."

It was like a bucket of cold water on her happy mood.

"I do other things besides having sex," Kagome said crossly, shoving her arms into her shirt and popping her head out with a glare in her eyes.

"Like what?" Inuyasha challenged, obviously amused.

"Like…," Kagome searched for something that wasn't pathetic. "I cook, I read, I go to school….sometimes. And I…and…"

There was nothing else.

_What else do I do with my time besides be here with Inuyasha? _she wondered uneasily, the same thought that Ayumi had inspired

"And you have lots and lots of sex," Inuyasha finished for her, ill-suppressing his gleeful enjoyment of her embarrassment.

Looking away from Inuyasha's rather mocking eyes, Kagome desperately tried to think of the last constructive thing she had done. Homework she rarely bothered with anymore and it wasn't like she had a job…

"Shut up," Kagome said fiercely, turning away violently. "I do other things except sex!" She blinked furiously and Inuyasha felt all his fun die quickly as the tears in her eyes became prominent.

"You couldn't even list them yourself," Inuyasha said, suddenly serious and his voice oddly sad. "I don't know what happened…you always used to be so energetic and constantly needing to find things to do."

_Ayumi was right_, Kagome realized with a lurch in her stomach. _I am throwing my life away. _It was a sickening insight.

Being told by others about how she was lazy and unmotivated was different from Inuyasha saying it. Coming from the one person who benefited most from their closeness, it slammed home to Kagome that she was not the same girl she used to be. In all the ways that counted, she had inexplicably altered and it terrified her.

Kagome started walking away but Inuyasha grabbed her arm, swinging her around to face him. "Where the hell are you going?"

"I'm going to go home," she said quietly. For a moment she dithered over whether to tell him everything that had been bothering her.

Should she tell him that Ayumi and her truthful accusations had horrified her? That she was just recognized this perplexing and frightening attitude toward life she had developed? Should she explain how Inuyasha's growing involvement in their relationship was making her uneasy?

"Why?"

Kagome opened her mouth to justify her actions as she always did but slowly closed her mouth. _Why am I constantly explaining myself to him?_ Looking away, she said softly, "What do I do all day except have sex, sleep, eat and be lazy? Nothing."

Inuyasha sighed explosively and shoved a hand through his hair in irritation. "It came out wrong. You do other stuff."

"No I don't," Kagome said honestly and a touch of bitterness. "In fact, modern Japan had been holding less and less appeal to me nowadays and I just didn't realize it." _Was it because I subconsciously didn't want to be surrounded by people with a purpose? My whole reason for being in the Feudal era died years ago. Why am I still here?_

"Kagome?" Inuyasha asked nervously. "What's with that expression?"

She looked up, the vacant look staying in her eyes. Having forgotten he was there, lost in her thoughts, the sharp tone of his voice had surprised her but not enough to deter her thoughts. _Am I so foolish, so stupid that I never saw it before? Was I- Am I so resistant to growing up that I blinded myself?_

"Kagome!" Inuyasha shouted, the growing horror in her eyes unnerving him. "Answer me, damn it!"

"Inuyasha…," she asked him shakily, "Why am I here?"

The half demon stared at her for a moment. "…Is this a trick question?"

"Shut up and answer!" Kagome shouted, her fist slamming into his chest hard. "Answer!"

"You're here to be with me!" he yelled back, grabbing her fist in his hand.

"Is that all?"  
"What else do you need?" Inuyasha asked in annoyance. "You seem pretty happy with the situation."

Kagome wanted to scream. _What else do I need? _She thought disbelievingly. Wanting to open her mouth and verbally flay Inuyasha alive, Kagome held herself back as she realized that she didn't know what else she needed.

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A/N:cough: so..I wrote this a while ago and...uh, yeah, these two have issues.

review and let me know what you thought.


	10. Things Fall Apart

**Chapter 10: Things Fall Apart:**

"_Whether times are good or bad_

_Happy or Sad_

_Let's stay together."_

_Al Green, Let's Stay Together_

Kagome flung open the door to her house and stormed inside. The argument she and Inuyasha had about her returning home was still ringing in her ears and all she wanted to do was go upstairs and sleep.

"Is that you Kagome?"

Stifling a groan, she walked toward the living room. _I'll just say hello and make my escape,_ she promised herself as she automatically smiled in her mother's direction. "Hi Mama!"

Not stopping her strong walk to her haven upstairs, Kagome almost made it when her mother called out, "Come here please." Her normally sweet voice was oddly tense and instinctually Kagome knew something was wrong.

Wary now for reasons she couldn't have explained, the time traveler dragged her feet as she walked over.

Yasu watched her daughter plod over, sullen and angry as she usually was nowadays and restrained a sigh. The conversation to come wasn't going to be easy…

Kagome examined her mother's face in wary surprise. Yasu's mouth was in a tight frown and there were lines that hadn't been there the last time Kagome had seen her mother. A graceful hand gestured for the girl to sit and Kagome did so, growing more and more uneasy.

"Why is it so quiet?" she asked finally as the silence between mother and daughter stretched uncomfortably.

"I sent Grandpa and Souta away," Mrs. Higurashi said stiffly.

"What? Why?"

Meeting her daughter's eyes, she said softly, "We need to talk."

_Oh shit… _moaned Kagome mentally_. Just when I thought the day couldn't get any worse, it does. _"Okay," she sighed in obvious annoyance. "I don't really have a choice. What's this about?"

Mrs. Higurashi pulled something from her lap and held it up accusingly. Kagome's eyes went wide as she recognized the sheets she and Inuyasha had ruined a few days ago. The sheet was clean if one ignored the tell-tale faint brown stains of washed out blood.

Kagome took a deep breath. "Momma, I know what this looks like," she said urgently, "but I can explain!"

"Try," her mother challenged quietly. "I know it wasn't blood from the loss of your virginity. First off, it's too much blood and second, you haven't been a virgin for a while now. A mother can sense these things and you lost your innocence to that boy a long while ago."

Kagome stayed quiet and her mother glared at her for her silence. "I still haven't heard your explanation. Explain to me why my daughter is sleeping with someone who makes her bleed."

"It's not like that," Kagome sputtered in shock. "We were…uh…"

"Having sex?" Yasu filled in bitterly. "This may surprise you dear but these walls aren't sound proof and you and that boy are both rather loud."

Her face flushed so quickly that it was painful and Kagome tried to not slump lower into her seat. "…Sorry," she said lamely.

"You should be," the formerly gentle woman spat out. Standing up, she flung the sheet at her daughter. "I thought you were smarter then this, failing out of school or not."

"What is it with everyone harping on me about school today?" muttered Kagome.

"That's not the point!" her mother shouted, fists clenched. "Stop talking and _listen to me for once_!"

Kagome jumped at the sound of her mother's raised voice. She couldn't remember the last time her mild-mannered mother had yelled and now her mother's face was red and she paced in anxiety.

Yasu bit her lip and try to focus beyond her emotional turmoil. "Kagome-chan, I love you. Everything I say or do is for your benefit. You believe me when I say that, don't you?" Kneeling in front of her oldest child, she took Kagome's hands in her own.

"Yes," Kagome replied softly, uncomfortable and soothed by her mother's closeness at once.

Rubbing her thumb over her daughter's knuckles, the tears rose in Yasu's brown eyes. "I remember every day with you as if it was yesterday. You were the happiest child, always brave and kind. I was…I am so proud to be your mother," she whispered. "I'd die to save you. I'd kill to protect you and Souta. But," she raised her eyes and gazed in horrified grief, "I don't understand why you're with him!"

Kagome swallowed hard. "Momma, I'm in love with him."

"You're a teenager! People your age fall in and out of love all the time," Yasu said wearily.

"Not me," Kagome responded with a sad smile. "Not us. This is it."

"No it's not. This is not 'it'," her mother said with a shake of her head. "It just feels that way."

"I've felt this way since I was 15. I know who I'm spending the rest of my life with. My place is with Inuyasha."

"Do you hear yourself?" her mother asked incredulously. "You were 15 when you met him! Do you really think a 15 year old Kagome should make this sort of decision? Haven't you grown and matured since then? Haven't you altered your standings on certain issues or changed your tastes in music and clothes?"  
"Of course!" Kagome said with an uncomfortable laugh.

"Well then why are you saying you decided on a life partner when you were 15?" she asked softly. For a moment no one said anything as Kagome digested her mother's words. "You were a child Kagome," Yasu added. "A lot of emotional and physical things have happened between the two of you when you were both very, very young. It made such an impression that you can't see clearly what's going on…"

Kagome stayed quiet, dread and fear combining in her stomach and causing her gorge to rise. _I don't want to hear this, I don't want to hear this…!_

"There's blood on that sheet. Too much for my comfort but any blood at all would be. He's abusive," her mother concluded sadly. "He's abusing you and you just don't see it."

Kagome shot off the couch. "He is not!" she gasped. The idea was almost laughable. Inuyasha wasn't anything like that and Kagome simply couldn't understand what her mother was thinking to say such a thing. "He's…not!" she denied loudly. Running her fingers through her hair, she shook her head and looked away from her mother. "Momma you have it all wrong. He's not abusive. He loves me."

"Maybe he does," Mrs. Higurashi admitted. "He acts like it sometimes but he doesn't know how to control himself. He made you bleed," she hissed, her anger sudden and visible as she thought of her precious daughter being maimed. "He hurt you."

"Yeah he hurt me and it's fine!"

"I don't think you understand-" her mother began.

"You're the one who doesn't understand!" Kagome burst out. "It…it was a sex thing, okay?" she explained angrily. "Is that what you wanted to know? It was during sex and he got a little careless with his claws! That's all!"

"That's all?" Yasu repeated in shock. "Kagome, when someone hurts you, you don't protect him or give him excuses! You leave the relationship!"

"I enjoy protecting him!" Kagome yelled. "He needs me!"  
"He doesn't need your protection anymore! He's a grown man!" her mother shouted back. "Furthermore, _you_ need you more! He may not mean it but he can really hurt you and the fact that he's already so careless terrifies me!"

"It doesn't concern you!" the younger Higurashi woman shouted into her mother's face. "Don't you get it? I can make my own decisions!"

"Not if these are the types of decisions you make," Yasu whispered. "He could kill you," she said fearfully as a tear slid down her cheek.

"Don't be so melodramatic," sneered Kagome with all the skepticism of a child who thought she was grown. "You never minded him before."

"I know," Mrs. Higurashi admitted. "Maybe if I hadn't wanted you to like me so much, I would have had more control over what you did. Perhaps this is my fault. I was so afraid of you hating me like I hated my mother that I became the opposite of everything she stood for. I regret it now," she said softly. "My mother was so strict but I never had a problem with my self worth."

"I do not have image problems," scoffed Kagome.

"It's the only reason I can see that my brave, smart daughter would stay with someone of that sort."

"Don't talk about him like that!" Kagome spun away but Yasu wrenched her around with her fingers clenched tightly around her daughter's upper arm. Their gazes clashed and it was a silent, bitter battle that Yasu lost.

Kagome glared at her mother relentlessly as she was released. "I am fine with my relationship and I wish you would leave it alone."

"I know you're not fine with it," Mrs. Higurashi said softly. She held up a small package and Kagome gasped in horror as the label on the box penetrated.

"How…how did you get that?" she asked numbly as her hand reached for the all important parcel.

"It was on the front porch when I came home. I saw it was for you and once I realized where it was from, I became suspicious and opened it," her mother said calmly.

"It was my package!"

"I'm your mother. I don't care if I invade your privacy if it protects you."

Kagome shook her head in disgust. "You invaded my privacy when it wasn't necessary."

"Apparently you aren't as sure of that as you pretend to be if you felt a need to go to a doctor outside of Tokyo for birth control."

Kagome sighed and looked away. "I just don't want kids yet…"

"While I'm happy that you use protection, if you were so positive that he was your life partner you would have come to me and we would have found a doctor together," her mother said quietly. "I would have supported you for making a responsible decision. You didn't come to me and that's because you see something in your involvement that you knew I'd disapprove of."

"You can support me now Momma," Kagome said optimistically. "I still need support."

"No, what you need is counseling," her mother replied sharply. "I won't let this relationship continue. He's abusive."

"He is not!" shouted Kagome, hurt and infuriated by her mother's seemingly cavalier dismissal of her long bond with the hanyou.

"He is!" Yasu said forcefully.

"He isn't!"

"Kagome, I'm telling you-!"

"For god's sake_, just fuck off!" _

_Slap!_

Kagome felt her eyes fill with tears as she held her hand against her aching cheek. "You hit me…," she whispered in disbelieve.

Yasu looked just as shocked as she gazed momentarily at her palm. "I…I didn't mean to," she said shakily. "I…"

Overcome, the two settled onto opposite sides of the couch, staring at each other as though they were strangers.

"What happened?" Kagome asked as the silence stretched too tautly.

"I'm your mother," Yasu said softly. "When I heard you use that word at me, I couldn't help it. You never used to talk that way…I'm only trying to help," she explained in a low voice, "and you cursed at me so vilely. I did nothing to deserve that."

"I know," Kagome agreed just as quietly. "I'm sorry for cursing at you but you're wrong. He's not…you know….to me."

Yasu said nothing and merely stared at Kagome in resignation. "Did he apologize?" she asked suddenly.

"For what?"

Kagome had never seen such a withering stare before as her mother glared at her daughter's obstinate blindness. "For cutting you. For being so rough that he ripped you open."

Kagome stood up suddenly. "I'm done with this conversation," she spat out and stormed up the stairs to her room. Slamming the door, she collapsed onto her bed.

She wasn't crying and it surprised her. _Perhaps_, Kagome thought absently, _it's because shock is setting in. _

Had he apologized for cutting her?

She wasn't sure was frightened her more, the fact that Inuyasha hadn't apologized for cutting her or the fact that she hadn't realized before now.

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Inuyasha leaned against the thick trunk of the Goshinboku and tried to settle his thoughts.

_She's so different. I don't know when it happened. How could I not see it?_ he wondered as his eyes narrowed against the sun. Thinking of the vicious argument that had exploded between the two of them before Kagome had ran to her era, Inuyasha sighed and thumped his head against the ancient tree. _We just both blew up for no reason. I can't even remember the reason for the fight but now she's mad at me again. I didn't do anything!_

"What the fuck is her issue?" he muttered angrily.

"Master!"

Inuyasha blinked and peered at the small flea demon floating down from passing bird. "Miyouga-jiji. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here to assist you," the old and maligned youkai said as he fastened onto his favorite snack bar, Inuyasha's nose. "Mmmm…"

Inuyasha flicked the flea away in annoyance. "I'm not dinner, you tiny pain in my ass. Go find a nice animal to suck on."

"I am surely the least appreciated being in the universe," groused Miyouga as he unflattened himself and climbed onto Inuyasha's raised knee.

"What assistance do I need?" the hanyou asked his father's old retainer. "I'm doing fine. No real demons to fight, no Sesshomaru to kill…"

Miyouga folded his legs and nodded sagaciously. "True and indeed a fine thing it is too, not worrying over your safety constantly-"

"From a distance," Inuyasah interjected dryly.

"That's not the point," Miyouga sniffed. "I am here to offer support in any way possible." The flea stared at Inuyasha's wan skin and the dark bags underneath his eyes. He noticed the hanyou's slumped shoulders and the sigh the boy heaved without realizing. "Are you all right?" Miyouga asked in sincere concern.

Inuyasha stared at the cowardly flea for a few minutes without blinking. "It has nothing to do with you," he answered finally.

"But it does with the lovely Lady Kagome?" the tiny demon shrewdly guessed.

Inuyasha glared at the older youkai malevolently. "It doesn't concern you so drop it!!... How'd you know anyways?"

Miyouga shook his head at the persistent hubris of the young. "I'm old, Inuyasha. I've been around and seen that expression to often to not know that it relates to woman problems."

"Don't all problems come down to women?" Inuyasha rhetorically asked darkly.

"Some would say that," Miyouga replied with a chuckle. He turned serious, leaning forward toward his master. "What is bothering you about Kagome?"

Inuyasha sighed. He did not want to discuss this private issue with the nosy youkai but there was no one else to talk to. "We aren't the same anymore," he mumbled. "I just don't get what happened and why things changed."

Miyouga nodded his head slowly and whistled out a breath for courage. What he knew had to be said was not going to comfortable for his sensitive master to hear. "Why wouldn't things change?"

Inuyasha blinked in astonishment. "Why _would_ they change? We've been doing pretty well for ourselves. Why should anything change?"

"Because that is what thinking beings do," the old demon said with a small, hidden smile. "Master, the fact is that you are not the person you were. Change is natural but how it will affect your relationship with Kagome-sama is entirely up to the two of you."

Inuyasha looked down at his retainer. "Meaning what?"

"Maturity is painful, Master. An adult evolves and sometimes leaves things behind. It is an unfortunate but a true, common circumstance."

"I don't want to leave something behind," Inuyasha protested angrily, knowing precisely the 'something' that his retainer was talking about.

Miyouga shook his head. "You speak like you have a choice."

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Kagome glared at the closed door of her house and whirled away in fury, her pursed clenched hard in her hands. "I cannot believe she's making me do this," she muttered as she marched down the steps of the shrine. Her mother's words echoed in her head, _"I made you an appointment by your doctor. I need to be sure you are okay."_

"_You mean not pregnant," Kagome said angrily. _

_Her mother was ominously silent for a moment before she turned and said, "Go to the doctor or don't come back."_

Kagome walked automatically toward the train station. _Sure Momma but what if I don't want to go?_ "I'm fine…," she mumbled to herself, kicking at a stone. "I don't need the damn doctor." A part of her mind told her she was overreacting but Kagome ignored it in favor of the comforting and distracting anger at her mother. She didn't want to think about any of the disturbing things her mother had forced her consider.

"She doesn't understand," Kagome whispered. "She doesn't understand us at all."

Waiting for a corner light to change, she wanted to stomp on the foot of the man who jostled her rudely but held herself back. _I should have rescheduled the appointment. It's too hectic at the end of the day_, she grumbled to herself. At the end of the workday, office drones were filling the streets as they all headed for somewhere comforting after a stressful day. Like so many others, Kagome headed for the subways.

A little voice in her head was pleading with her to think on her mother's words but she ruthlessly shunted it aside. _I don't want to, _she told herself crossly_. Leave me alone._

The crowd surged forward as the walking sign turned on and even if she had wanted to go in the other direction, it would have been almost impossible to fight the tide of people. Moving toward her destination, the concrete passed quickly under Kagome's feet as she marched, anger giving her speed and agility to maneuver through the crowded Tokyo streets. Stomping down the stairs, she looked around to find her train that would lead to Ikebukuro and her gynecologist.

Knowing the subway schedule, she was prepared for a wait as her train had just run through. The platform emptied somewhat as most of the commuters boarded their trains. Kagome shifted impatiently for the Y to show up but knew it would be a long time in coming. At the very edge of the platform, she looked down at the tracks into darkness of the tunnel.

_When did it get so difficult?_ She reflected unhappily, her thoughts turning naturally back to her emotional predicament. _We used to be best friends. We were really…happy with each other. But now everyone is yelling at me, telling me that I don't know what I'm doing. People I love are so disappointed in me and I don't understand why. _

_I can't deal with this. _

_I just need a little time. _

She shakily exhaled as tears pricked at her eyes again. Rubbing them away, she looked down the tunnel but no train was coming.

_He isn't abusing me. We were just excited._

That little voice piped up again and Kagome hated it with a passion. _He's done it before, _it said forcefully_. He always cums so hard afterward, as soon as he sees you helpless and bleeding underneath him. How is this relationship healthy?_

Her fists clenched. "I don't care. I'm not going to give this up!"

_In the past he was so careful with me. He never used to want me to get injured but ever since we've become lovers, he's been reckless. It's like I shared my body with him and he thinks that now I can take the same rough treatment his body can._

All the things people had been saying to her flashed through her mind, their faces disappointed, frightened and scornful.

"_You're pathetic. You let some guy run your life. Where has your pride gone?"_

"_I thought you were smarter then this, failing out of school or not."_

"_What will you do when your future is decided for you, all because you couldn't be bothered?"_

"_A lot of emotional and physical things have happened between the two of you when you were both very, very young. It made such an impression that you can't see clearly what's going on…"_

For what felt like the thousandth time since it had happened, Kagome could feel the impact of her mother's palm against her face, recalling with perfect clarity the sting of it and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. Her shoulders slumped as she saw her mother's tear filled eyes questioning her, asking her to see what was happening.

"Stupid train," Kagome mumbled as a tear fell. "Always late."

She pictured Inuyasha as he was when she first saw him, hair swaying in the breeze as he rested in the spell-induced limbo between life and death. After she had woken him, the Jewel had shattered and the two were thrown into an epic battle against evil that had controlled everyone's lives, stole their happiness and youth for over two years.

_He was at peace then, comatose and unreachable. _

A smoker lit a cigarette near her and casually blew the resulting haze her way but Kagome didn't move or notice.

_I think right before I woke him was the last peace either of us really had._

A train pulled into station but it wasn't the Y and so she suffered through the pushing and shoving that result when many people try to get on and off the same train.

_Has everything I've done been useless or worse, harmful?_

The subway engine pulled away and the platform shook.

Kagome's eyes gravitated toward the tracks. _They're not so far away, _she thought a tad hysterically_. If I jump, will that solve everything?_

Time seemed to slow as she realized what she had thought. Light, sound and scent faded into inconsequence as the dangerous railways sparked with electricity, calling her into a final comfort.

_I've run away from a lot of things, _Kagome mused absently_, why not this? _

_If I jump, would my problems end?_

_If I jumped, would everyone be relieved that I had died with my potential still alive and everything I could have been forever a possibility? Who really wants or needs someone who always ends up a disappointment?_

The yellow warning line at the end of the platform had never seen more like a shackle. _So many people in Japan do it. Why not me?_ she thought radically. _Why not me?_

Her feet seemed to move separately from her consciousness as she shuffled to the edge of the dais. The purse she had held in her hands so tightly before dropped from her grasp but the overwhelmed teenager didn't notice.

_It would be over so quickly. Just a burst of electricity and then nothing…or I'll do it before a train, get hit and die from the impact. It would be over so soon._

"This whole situation would finally be finished...," she whispered, greedy, selfish and blinded by the effortless genius of her plan. _Simplicity itself…!_

Poised on the rim of the subway stage, Kagome took a breath and released it silently. A single move forward would throw her over the side and into peace. Slowly she eased her foot forward with a smile on her face.

A wooden cane hit her in the stomach gently and pushed her backward from the edge. Shocked at the interference, she turned to deliver a blistering sermon about minding the privacy of others.

An old Japanese man in a faded, brown tweed coat and ridiculous looking black bowler hat nodded at her and nudged her from the edge one more time with his cane. Kagome stared down at the hunched over old man who barely reached her shoulders and blinked in confusion.

"Excuse me but who are you?" she asked irritably. "Why did you hit me in the stomach?"

Despite the sunglasses on his face, she could see his bushy white eyebrows rise. "When one is wishing to make a suicide wish, perhaps speaking it out loud is not the best way to preserve secrecy, hmm?" he asked rhetorically.

Mouth agape she blushed miserably. _I can't do anything right._ "I was talking out loud?" she winced.

"Indeed. Perchance your unconsciousness is trying to tell you something child."

"I don't think so," Kagome disagreed rudely, turning her head away from the meddlesome elder.

"It's your head. It's a safe bet that you know it best." The man spoke in breathy modulations, catching his wind at the end of every sentence and so ending always with a sigh.

Kagome looked at the old man and frowned at herself. "I'm sorry," she apologized in embarrassment. "I'm just not happy today. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. My apologies," she finished with a small bow.

A small smile lifted the corner of the wrinkled man's face and he waved away her request for forgiveness with a gracious air. "It's of no consequence in the long run of life," he wheezed, "like so many other things." He tapped her foot with his cane. "You've only got one life to live my dear. So make sure that before you throw it away, you evaluate if whatever is causing you all this pain is truly worth it."

Kagome swallowed hard and looked around. She had the strangest desire to just dump all her troubles on this stranger, see what an objective listener's perspective would be but she said nothing. He waited but as the moments ticked by and she remained silent, he nodded and turned away.

"It's a guy," Kagome burst out before the stranger had even taken a step.

The old man faced her with a curious expression on his wrinkled face. "A man, you say? A man?"

"He's really a boy," she explained in embarrassment. "But I love him and there are all these things that have happened, things you wouldn't believe, and I just don't know what went wrong between us and I want to fix it but I don't know if it's possible and-"

With a small laugh, the old man held up his hands as if surrendering. "Good heavens! What a litany of pain!" he chuckled again and mumbled something about impetuous youth and finally looked at Kagome. "There is only one question to ask here," he said quietly. "Are you being fulfilled by this relationship?"

"Wh, what do you mean?"

"In my long life, I've been through more then my share of hurts. Who hasn't, after all? But there are two things I have learned a long, long time ago and they may help you now. First off, never make a decision in the heat of the moment, especially if it's important. Go somewhere quiet and think the matter over for a while. Things become more easily heard when it's silent." With an obvious look, he glanced at the subway platform's end and raised his eyebrows. Kagome nodded in embarrassment. "Good," the old man said softly before continuing. "Secondly, all of life's choices can be evaluated by asking yourself very simply, 'Does this make me a better person?' In this case, if the relationship does, then it should be given another chance. If not, you should think of why you're together in the first place."

"Because we love each other!" Kagome said emphatically.

"But is it enough?"

Kagome could feel her heart pounding. With a screeching of the breaks, a new train pulled into sight.

"A train's coming," she commented softly.

"Indeed it is. Is it your train?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll have to find out when it gets here…"

"Yes. You will."

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A/N: Hey. Hope you liked the chapter. For those who are like 'why is kagome suddenly committing suicide? That's a bit ooc'.

To that I say two things: firstly, she's a teenager- as a breed (and they are a breed apart), they're more melodramatic than most anyone else. Every issue has overwhelming importance and significance. Every issue is huge and seems insurmountable. Add to this attitude an actual, real problem and some less than wise decisions are the results. Hence Kagome's thoughts on suicide. Besides, she's an emotional person who has no support left for the most important thing in her life, her relationship with inuyasha. All these doubts after achieving everything she thought she wanted is very upsetting.

secondly, by virtue of the fact she's having sex at all, this whole story is a bit OOC. go with the flow people.

hope you enjoyed the chapter. Also, btb, kagome's mother's name Yasu is not canon and means 'calm' in japanese.

review and let me know what you thought!


	11. Resolution

A/N: This is _not_ the last chapter!! Also, sorry it took so long. Hopefully it was worth the wait!

Warning: contains language and some adult concepts

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**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

**Resolution**

_What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end._

_-Nine Inch Nails, "Hurt"_

A figure walked alone along a riverbank. His head was downcast and anyone could see that weighty matters were on his mind. Not so idly kicking a rock from his path, Inuyasha wondered and contemplated the last few years. Examining the faces she had made, the words and gestures she had used that now seemed less insignificant, he sighed deeply.

Could it have been prevented if he had paid more attention?

Would the situation have been better if he had forced his points through?

Blowing out a breath, he wished vehemently he had never met Miyouga by the Goshinboku. _Why the hell did the stupid old flea have to say stuff like that? "Why wouldn't things change?" "An adult evolves and sometimes leaves things behind." "It is an unfortunate but a true, common circumstance." Bullshit!_

Except that it wasn't.

"What a mess…," he whispered into the air. "What a fuck up of everything I wanted." _What do I do now?_

Slowly and methodically kicking the rock, he never paused or faltered as he made his way to his unrealized destination.

The question was, was there anything left to save? Or, Inuyasha admitted to himself, could what was left be saved?

00000000000000000000000000

Kagome wandered back to her home slowly, her thoughts jumbled and confused.

"_Is it enough?"_

Sighing heavily, she raised her hand to block her eyes from the glare of the sun as she stared up from the shrine steps. Memories came to her of the long days in the Feudal Era-she and Inuyasha were a pair from the beginning. Fighting, smiling, laughing, arguing, not talking, talking, sharing dreams, sharing fears- a pair attached by a cause and honor. _No two people could have been closer then the two of us,_ she thought as a warm breeze wafted in the air. _We were a matched pair, both not really understanding how quickly we could fall in love._

Kagome sighed and continued up the daunting steps. _Of course it took us a while to admit that we were in love. But the actual falling part? _A smile flitted across her face. _No, the falling was hard, painful and stupidly fast. I went from having almost no experience with boys to plunging into a serious relationship. _

She reached the shrine courtyard and stopped to catch her breath. The thought of going back into her house and talking with her mother made Kagome feel almost ill. Yet leaving into the wildness of Tokyo didn't appeal either. Indecisively she paused at the lip of the courtyard.

Where to now?

00000000000000000000000000

Inuyasha leapt from the well in a silent explosion of electric blue light. Standing comfortably on the edge of the oddest time traveling machine in the world, he stared at the door.

He hadn't wanted to come. As he had made his way to the well in the meadow, he had resisted with all his being. It was instinct that alerted him to the danger. The threat of his personal apocalypse was growing and he could do nothing to stop it. The magnitude of the panic seemed absurd but it was an almost physical sensation in his gut.

The last time he had felt this omniscient sensation crawling under his skin was the day that Naraku had died.

The outcome of that had been the disintegration of his entire world.

Yet there was nothing to fight now, nothing tangible to kill or stop.

So he came to her, leaping into the peculiar magical portal, bypassing time in a timeless moment, knowing he would regret it.

Now it was time to take his courage in his hands and face whatever was causing this sick feeling in his stomach. Jumping off the well, he landed in front of the doors.

_Am I overreacting? Am I seeing too much into the situation?_ Inuyasha wondered as he inhaled. _It doesn't matter anymore. It's time to act, _he decided determinedly._ Enough thinking._

His hand refused to move.

Inuyasha growled as the sheer irrationality of the situation pushed him into action. He heaved open the doors and strode into the sunlight, one hand of Tessuiga's hilt and the other poised for action.

There was just one thing left to decide.

Where to now?

00000000000000000000000000

_I should be surprised but I'm just not_, Kagome thought as she walked to the Goshinboku and saw the object of almost all her thoughts nearing it as well. Inuyasha stopped when he was close enough to see the way strands of her hair delicately waved in front of her face in the breeze. "Hey."

"Hey." Kagome drank in the sight of his red haori, silver hair and closed gold eyes. Her reaction to him, the almost desperate need to memorize his features, illuminated the decision she hadn't been aware of making. _Did I know all along? Was I denying myself the only answer?_

Inuyasha saw her eyes grow sad and contemplative and the sickening feeling in his stomach intensified. "So I guess we need to talk," he said quietly. Kagome's head jerked up and she stared wide-eyed at his serious mien.

Inuyasha turned, not waiting for her to answer.

"How did you know?" she whispered to his back.

He paused and looked over his shoulder, a small smile on his face. _After all this time, she should know that I know her by now._ "I could see it in your eyes," he answered softly. _Maybe…just maybe it comes down to that._

She opened her mouth but slowly shut it and simply nodded her head. The pair walked on.

The wind blew his hair around gently but Inuyasha didn't notice as he made his way toward the Goshinboku. Kagome followed in his footsteps, unable to do more then go where he led.

_And that's half the problem_, she thought sadly.

The Goshinboku's greenery was falling and the bench that rested near the famous tree was covered in twigs and leaves. Brushing off the debris, the pair sat down.

"It's pretty outside today," Kagome commented.

Inuyasha nodded, accepting the inane remark as the opening gambit it was.

"It seems like a waste to ruin it."

"But we're going to ruin it anyways," he replied knowingly.

Kagome swallowed. "Yeah." Nothing had ever seemed this difficult before. She let out a shaky breath and began. "For a long time it's been just us. We fought demons and monsters and evil witches and even stopped the world from ending."

"A couple of times," Inuyasha added with a snort.

"Yeah, that was us. A pair of regular superheroes in a red haori and a school girl uniform." Kagome breathed in again for strength. "We were total strangers in the beginning but then we became friends." She smiled at him and it dazzled him, a bright flash of unexpected cheerfulness. "We are friends, first and foremost."  
He nodded and smiled back, his grin small and not as bright as hers.

"And then…we fell in love. You didn't want to and, to be totally honest, neither did I," she said with a sad look in her eyes, "Kikyou was in your heart, taking all the space you had to give. I wanted to keep this world and my own time apart and falling in love with you wouldn't allow that kind of separation."

Kagome shook her head in bemusement as she took in the shocked look on his face. "You didn't know? I tried damn hard to resist you. I might have been only fifteen but I knew that it would be emotional agony."

"Not that bad," protested Inuyasha.

"Yes it was. Up until we destroyed Naraku and Kikyou left, I was on this awful emotional roller coaster and couldn't get off."

Inuyasha took a deep breath. "…And now?"

"Then we killed Naraku and became lovers." Kagome looked at Inuyasha intently. "We became lovers…all the obstacles between us should have disappeared but they didn't. New ones just popped up in their place. A different ride but the same amusement park."

"I don't understand."

"I know." Trying to organize her thoughts into a translatable mass, Kagome sighed deeply. _How to tell him?_ Sucking in a breath past the lump in her throat was hard. "Lately I've been doing some thinking. About us. About what we've become…What have we become…Do you know?"

The hanyou tried to read her eyes to see what she wanted to hear but they were a closed book, not letting any of their secrets out. "I thought we became happy," he whispered finally. "I thought we were finally happy."

"We are!" Kagome agreed desperately. "I am!" Feeling tears prick her eyes, she nodded silently. "We are happy together."

"So what's the problem then??" he burst out. "Why are you doing this whole thing?"

Kagome stared at him and finally saw with clarity. It was in the defensive line of his back, the tense way he set his shoulders and the downward tilt of his head that led her to the correct conclusion.

"You know what I'm trying to say," she said softly, shocked. "You know!"

Gold eyes narrowed in hurt. "I think I know but I'm hoping I'm wrong." He cocked his head and his eyes pleaded alongside his soft voice. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"…No."

Inuyasha squeezed his eyes shut. "_Fuck. Oh…fuck_."

Kagome swallowed and breathed heavily as she tried to regain her tenuous control. "We've been so obsessed with finally allowing ourselves to be in love that we lost sight of who we are. Of who we were supposed to become." She winced as she stumbled over her words, knowing she wasn't getting her point across.

"We were supposed to become two people in love!" Inuyasha replied in frustration.

"And what else? What else are we supposed to be?"

"Who needs something else?"

"I do!" Kagome shouted. "And so do you!" Her voice rang in the shrine courtyard. "We've grown up a little but that's all. Don't you see? The fact that it's taken us so long to realize that we should be defining ourselves in relation to something more than one other person proves something here isn't right!"

"That's bullshit!"

"It's not!" she answered loudly, slamming her fist onto her knee.

Inuyasha glared and looked away, muttering angrily. He bounced to his feet but Kagome grabbed onto his sleeve before he could walk away.

"I keep on running to you whenever I get into any sort of trouble," Kagome whispered.

Inuyasha shook his head, anger changing into sadness and confusion. "Isn't that what love is?"

"No, that's dependency."

"A person is dependant on the person they love."

"No! A person is completed by love. We were, no- we are stagnating."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Inuyasha demanded. He ripped himself away from her hands and stalked five paces to the right and five paces to the left. Over and over, he followed the tiny path as Kagome spoke.

"It's been four years since Naraku died. I…haven't grown at all. No other goals, no ambitions at all; my whole life was killing Naraku and being with you. Staying in the same place for four years isn't healthy. It isn't normal to have no life beyond…you."

"I have no life outside of you either."

"And that's wrong. You should be settling down in a village somewhere or becoming a mercenary- well, I hope not that," Kagome frowned, "but…something! Something more than what you were! Not just sitting on Kaede's roof, waiting for me to pop over or waiting to pop over to me. You should want to do something beyond odd jobs for the villagers."

"Maybe I don't want to settle down," he argued.

Kagome stood up. "I am what is keeping you from moving on. And you are keeping me from moving past what happened to us on my fifteenth birthday."

He finally stopped pacing and looked her square in the eyes. "I guess that's the difference between us. I don't want to move on without you."

"But you _can_ move on without me. You can't move on and grow _with_ me. Neither of us can. That," she said softly as she caressed his cheek in her palm, "is the problem. Not that I don't want you. It's just that we…we swallow each other up."

"That," he announced in cruel parody, "is bullshit. Now that we know what the, the problem is, we can stop it. No need to do all this."

Kagome sat down again and lowered her head into her hands. "Don't you get it?" she whispered. "I'm tired. I'm tired of fighting everything and everyone for you. Kikyou, Naraku, strangers, demons, Sesshomaru, even yourself- I've battled them all for you but now…I've got nothing left to give you. Everything I've had, everything I could, I gave to you. And now, I have nothing left for myself. I need to leave and I don't want to!" she said, crying now and not caring. "I don't want to, damn it all! It's not fair when I've fought so hard for you! But…" she spread her arms wide. "I've only got one life. I've got to make it count. You've drained me dry. In order to survive, I need to go."

"I can't let you," Inuyasha said harshly. "I won't!"

"I never asked you for anything," Kagome said softly, wiping away tears. "Give me this. Leave and let me have some good memories. I want to remember you safe, healthy and happy! I want to remember the man I helped you become! And I can't do that if I stay with you!" she almost shouted. "All I'll remember is how miserable we were, how badly we worked out…"

"We aren't miserable," denied Inuyasha hotly, desperately. "We're having a rough spot between us and I don't see why the fuck I should let you leave me!"

_He doesn't get it_, she thought in despair. _He doesn't understand how bad this is. _

"Inuyasha…please."

He went to his knees in front of her, taking her cold hands in his. "You're my only friend. You are my only family." He shook his head and looked at her with eyes that shone with tears. "I don't have anyone but you. _No one_. Do you even understand that? If you leave me, you have your mother and Souta and your friends. I have no one except you. Don't ask me to give this up…"

_God forgive me for what I am about to do._

"I considered killing myself yesterday," Kagome said softly.

She couldn't look into his eyes, couldn't see his horror and appalled expression. She could feel his eyes staring at her and there was no sound in the courtyard except the wind and his whispered denial

Feeling the ground move underneath him, Inuyasha settled heavily next to Kagome on the bench, seeing nothing and hearing only those words, _"killing myself." _The words echoed in his head.

_When did this become so fucked up?_ he wondered in misery. Looking at her watering eyes, he shook his head again, opened his mouth but couldn't get anything out. _I can't do it. Losing her now will kill me_, he knew. He turned ideas over in his head, trying to see something that he hadn't seen already, a different solution other than the obvious. _But…am I killing her by staying? _

It was impossible to think of, a sundering of everything that tied him to humanity. She had taught him that- people weren't meant to be alone.

_There has to be another way._

However sometimes the best option is the hardest and, in some rare cases, the hardest option is the only one you have.

In the end it was the only thing he could do.

_Love isn't supposed to hurt this much. It shouldn't be allowed to grow this big inside me and then abandoned. _

"Because I love you…and I do," Inuyasha told her softly, covering her hand with his.

"I know…"

"And I suppose that the only way to really show my love is to do what's best for you. Letting go of you," he inhaled sharply and suddenly, "I wonder how I'll be able to do it but I won't- no, I can't let something happen to you. I've been your protector for so long, I guess this is just a strange and awful continuation of that." _This will kill me. "_If…leaving is what's best for you then I'll leave voluntarily. I love you enough to do that."

_I can't breathe._ Kagome whispered, "Does this mean what I think it does?"

"I think so." Inuyasha nodded and sucked in air past pain. _I can feel my heart breaking._

The two gazed at each other, miserable and lonely despite being near the person they loved more than any other.

Slowly Kagome's head descended to rest on Inuyasha's shoulder, tears falling onto his haori uncaringly. She didn't notice his eyes closing in pain as his heart squeezed unmercifully. _Soon, _a voice that sounded like his own whispered in his mind_, you'll never have this again. Soon…_

"Hey Inuyasha?" Kagome asked quietly. "You know what I wish?"

"What?" he whispered as unfamiliar wetness fell onto his cheeks.

"I wish we had never killed Naraku. I wish Sango, Miroku and Shippou were still with us and you and I were still nervous and frightened of the future." Kagome tried to smile through the tears clouding her eyes. "I wish to God we were still happy….we were happy then and we didn't even realize."

Inuyasha sucked in a breath and kissed the top of her head softly. He slowly stroked her hair with a rough, callused hand.

"Me too…" he whispered back finally. "Me too…"

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A/N: I repeat this is not the last chapter! Let me know what you thought about this. As I told some reviewers, this has been literally months in the making. I wanted to try and par down the separation talk because I tend to the flowery and overemotional and wanted to keep this from being overwrought but still keeping an emotional pow. (re: the last chapters of 'All Things Keep Getting Better'. I cringe. I swear I_ shudder_ when I reread that….thing. blech.) Please tell me how I did!


	12. Parting Gifts & Goodbyes

A/N: Once again, sorry it took so long. this is the second to last chapter of the story and I hope you enjoy it.

let me know what you think!

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**Chapter 12:**

**Parting Gifts & Goodbyes**

"_From the first to the last_

_The signs said stop_

_But we went on whole hearted_

_It ended bad but I love what we started,"_

_-Fiona Apple, "Parting Gift"_

Kagome looked into the bathroom mirror and couldn't even summon the energy to grimace at her own horrid reflection. _You're separating from your first love and look like something the cat would be embarrassed to drag in._ The thought should have horrified her into a flurry of female primping but she was just too drained. Pushing away from the counter, she went back to her room where Inuyasha and her bed waited.

Was this a wise move?

_No_, she mentally snorted, it was absolutely the stupidest thing she could possibly be doing. But when they had both been so disappointed and sad outside, it had seemed like the right decision.

_I wonder if anyone else deliberately ends a relationship and then goes and has sex with their ex that same night?_ She opened her door quietly. _Yeah, other people do this stupid stunt all the time. Do they know how dumb it is? Or are they like me, knowing and not able to summon a damn?_

Inuyasha's piercing eyes looked at her as she entered. There was nothing more to be said and the decision had been made.

They were over.

"We should make this a clean break," Kagome suggested quietly. "Not do this."

The hanyou snorted. "Can the end of this be anything but ugly? I don't think so."

She settled onto the bed next to him. "I meant the sex. I don't think it's a good idea."

Inuyasha thought for a few long moments. "I want to have sex with you," he said finally. "It's not because it's sex. It's because I'm…close to you when we're together. I'm not going to have that much longer."

Kagome made an amused noise. "You know, if I didn't know you so well, I'd think that was a line."

Inuyasha blinked. "Keh."

Kagome let out a watery giggle and Inuyasha smiled reluctantly.

"Keh," she imitated poorly and then laughed again for no real reason.

Later she would remember it as one of the sweetest moments between them, the two of them laughing until tears came down and their cheeks and stomach hurt. They ended up on the floor, holding onto each other as they tried to catch their breath.

Inuyasha gazed down at Kagome. Her cheeks were red and her eyes squinty as she hiccupped and finished giggling. She looked wonderful, as perfect as happiness.

It felt natural to lean down to kiss her.

She responded so sweetly that Inuyasha groaned and pressed her down onto the carpet. Kagome wound her arms around his neck, urging him close and closer until her body was fully against his and it felt sinfully good.

As clothes were slowly peeled off, the kisses slowed to match. The loving gentled to a slow, unhurried pace. His mouth drifted, nipping and kissing wherever it landed. Her hands wandered over his body with a sensual purpose. Both shuddered from the sensations that were intensified by the imminent separation.

Inuyasha whispered sweet, loving words and tried to show her how much she meant to him. Kagome replied by opening her legs and welcoming him closer to her.

Deftly feeling the warm wet between her legs, he slid into her for the last time. Shuddering Inuyasha held himself, trying to hold onto the sensation of that first sweet bite of pleasure, the ultimate gift she had given him so readily all these years.

"It never gets any less sweet," he told her in a hushed tone. "You…You always feel like home to me."

Kagome nodded as sweat began to coat her skin. "It always feels wonderful," she agreed in a raspy tone. "It always seems better than the last time."

Inuyasha moved once, twice but then paused. "I still love you," he whispered, all emotional inhibitions gone with the certainty of their end. "I still do."

Kagome scratched at his back letting him know that she needed him to move. As he thrust as deep as he could, Kagome gasped out, "I love you too. Oh..!" She moved with him in a jerky synchronization that smoothed as physical rhythm took over the both of them.

When the passion was too much, the pair climaxed simultaneously, glorying and mourning at the same time.

His breath bursting in and out, Inuyasha leaned down and lightly bit Kagome shoulder, dragging his sharp canines against her skin. She smiled at his absent-minded version of aftermath kisses.

_I bet he doesn't even know he does that. _

Kagome kissed the top of his head as he rested it against her shoulder for a moment.

Seconds and minutes past in a blissful contemplation of nothing. Inuyasha raised himself up with a groan to pull out but Kagome stopped him with a tight hug.

"Don't," she whispered into his much loved ear. "I want to feel you get soft in me."

Inuyasha chuckled. "Saying stuff like that certainly won't help."

She grinned. "I don't see the problem in that."

He grinned back and shoved all the misery he was feeling to the back of his mind. As he rolled over and heard her laugh in surprise, night was falling finally. Their last day was ending.

_Take what you can_, he told himself as he felt perfect lips kiss his neck. _One day, one moment at a time is the only way to get by_.

00000000000000000000000000000

"It's kind of stupid looking…Never noticed that before," Inuyasha mumbled as he stared at the well.

Kagome nodded her head.

The silence stretched uncomfortably, as if they were strangers instead of lovers.

"I guess I should go…"

"Yeah…"

Neither moved.

Inuyasha fidgeted, searching for something to say. Sneaking a look at Kagome's closed expression did not offer any hints of what she would like to hear. He couldn't sort through his thoughts to get everything he was thinking in these last few moments to express himself.

_Screw it._

"What are you going to do now?" he blurted out.  
"Honestly?" At his slightly irritated nod, she grinned. "I think I want to go to university and maybe then a graduate program."

"Graduate program…oh, that thing," Inuyasha recalled her explanation from a long time ago. "Fine. To become what?"

"A veterinarian."

Inuyasha stared at her disbelievingly.

She shrugged. "I like dogs."

"Very fucking funny," groused Inuyasha.

Kagome just smiled. "I have no idea how I'll pay for it but I'll manage."

The uncomfortable silence fell again and neither could break it.

Finally giving in, Inuyasha pushed his hand through his hair in a familiar rough gesture. "You say something," he demanded. "I'll follow."

"What do you want me to say?" Kagome asked bitingly, annoyed that even now he used his usual heavy handed, controlling tactics to communicate.

"Something important."

"Oh, is that all?" she asked rhetorically.

"Yeah."  
Rolling her eyes, she nevertheless concentrated on what she wanted to tell him. Shifting from one foot to the other, Kagome wondered how to sum up what she wanted to say without quoting Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. _Parting_ is_ such sweet sorrow but somehow I don't think he'll care for that. _

She murmured, "All this is coming from something I realized recently. I've only got one life and I've got to make it count."

"You could do that with me around," he whispered, a last ditch effort.

"I don't think so. I wish I could but…I just don't think so."

The silence was no longer strained but instead heavy with the weight of words that couldn't be recalled.

It was a silence born between two people aware of the futility in this delaying tactic.

Inuyasha growled. "Fuck this."

"Wha-?"

Inuyasha grabbed Kagome and hugged her tightly. Inhaling that particular scent that was uniquely hers, he kissed her temple gently. "I love you. Deal with it."

Kagome shook her head and hugged him back. "I love you too."

"Well that's all I need to hear. I need to leave, remember?" he whispered hoarsely.

They stayed like that for a few minutes.

"Hey Inuyasha?" Kagome said softly.

"Yeah?"

"Go back to your own time."

He stared at her for a moment and then, suddenly and without warning, he began to smile. "You've been dying to say that to me, haven't you?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "It was so bratty when you shoved me into the well."

His shoulders shook and his laughter rang out. "I deserved that."

And suddenly it felt like the time was right.

He gently pushed her away and jumped onto the lip of well. Looking back, he saw her eyes were filled with tears. "Don't cry."

"Can't help it."

"Women," he snorted.

She stuck out her tongue and Inuyasha felt it like a punch to the gut.

_God, I'm going to miss her._ He turned around- he just couldn't look into her eyes as he jumped back in time.

The familiar blue light filled the hut for the last time and Kagome clutched her hands to her side.

_The hut seems so much darker once the glow fades_, she noted absently.

There was no need to test the magic well. She could tell that it was now nothing more than wood and dirt, with that same sense that could once detect jewel shards.

She clambered up and leapt into the mouth of the well anyway. Her landing was steady, perfect and completely useless. Looking up at the well house roof, Kagome knew it was really over. She climbed up the ladder, opened the doors of the well house and stepped through. She could see the Goshinboku faintly in the dawn but not enough to see where an arrow had once held a boy for fifty years against the trunk.

Locking the doors of the well house behind her, Kagome walked back to her house.

It was past time for life to move on.

"_There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave  
You were what I wanted  
I gave what I gave  
I'm not sorry I met you  
I'm not sorry it's over  
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say  
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say..."_

_Stars, "Your Ex-Lover is Dead"_


End file.
